


The Affair of the Necklace

by DarkAthena (seraphim_grace)



Series: A/B/O bodice rippers [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Alpha Kate Argent, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Bodice-Ripper, Fandom Cares, Historical Inaccuracy, Lorna Doone Au, M/M, Omega Stiles Stilinski, Restoration period, Secret Identity, Warning: Kate Argent, all places named are real, bandits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-06-22 19:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15589314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/DarkAthena
Summary: A Lorna Doone AUStiles and Derek grow up neighbors, but Stiles is an Argent and the Argents killed Derek's family





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plumclouds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumclouds/gifts).



In his twelfth year of life, two things happened to irrevocably change the life of Derek Hale forever. The first of these was the murder of his parents by the Argent clan whose depredations had been spreading across Exmoor for over a decade. This saw him removed from school and returned to the family farm which, although it was now his, was being managed by his uncle in his adolescence. His elder sister was an omega who was promised to be married to Lord Deucalion Beecham once she reached her majority, and at fourteen was happy to tell everyone this, and how she would go to live in London and be at court and many other things that Derek had long since learned to tune out, and his younger sister, an omega also, was barely off leading strings at only eight years old.

This meant that his uncle, Peter, an alpha like Derek, had been forced to leave his practice of law in the city of Bristol to raise the children in their farm on Exmoor.

The second happening when Derek slipped away from his parent's funeral, where everyone was dour and sad and shaking his hand and telling him that he had to be the alpha of the family now and making plans for him without his consent when his mind was still trying to do the latin in his head that he no longer needed to for an essay that he no longer needed to write for a school he would no longer attend and whether his uncle had ushered the dogs from the house and the cats from the barns for all the people who would be traipsing through the house and wouldn't his father be upset at all the mud they tracked through his floors.

It was a warm day although the previous night had had heavy rain, so there was mud flecking up the legs of his stockings and so he shucked off his shoes, tying the laces so he could hang them around his neck, pulled off the stockings and shoved them into his shoes and walked barefoot through the grass, which had been something that had always angered his mother who lamented that she could never get the dirt from his feet and from under his toenails. He started to kick through the water of the stream practicing his Latin verbs because it was easier than thinking about the trouble he was going to get into when he got home.

He was angry.

He wouldn't see his mother or be gathered into his father's arms again or lie in his dormitory bed in school missing them and it was so unfair. He had always been going to inherit the farm, but he didn't need to yet. He wanted to be grown up and married and have seen places like London and York which were so far away they might as well be in the New World. His parents had even argued over whether it was worth sending him to university but now he wouldn't because the Argents had killed his parents.

He was in that terrible age where he was aware of how awful they were but it had always seemed distant and unimportant. They might snatch a sheep from the field or cause fights in the local tavern but those had always been grown up problems and now they were his and he kicked the water again. It was kicking that water that caused the second event which changed his life.

He marched up the stream to the border of his land where there was a small pool that was just deep enough for swimming and a few large rocks that the water fell form to form a small waterfall that was perhaps as tall as Derek was and half again. He stripped off his jacket and shirt, before skinning off his pants and wading into the water. He did a few lazy laps before he was interrupted by a voice coming from above. "What're you doing?" 

The voice belonged to a small figure in a dress that seemed bigger than they were. He immediately thought it was a girl before he remembered that dresses such as the child wore, and they were no older than six or seven, certainly younger than Cora - his youngest sister - were what omegas wore and although the omega's hair was long it was unkempt and formed a sort of cloud about their head that looked as untouched by man as certain parts of Africa. He had read about Africa in school. There was also a pretty golden locket fallen out of the stomacher of the dress and the chain was caught in the hair and looked kind of painful but the child didn't seem to care.

He answered the child without wondering where the child was from because it was Argent land and he didn't recognize them from the village. "I'm swimming," he said, he was curious if the child was stupid because surely everyone knew what swimming was. This wasn't the only swimming hole in the area but it was the quietest. Often on warm days like this, every child who had finished their chores were heading for the water, under the lazy eyes of watching adults making sure that they did not come to harm.

"It looks fun," the child said, scampering down the rocks like a spider, all stick-thin limbs, and wild, long, loose hair. It was as if someone had stitched a shadow to the back of their head, it was so long and dark and when he got close Derek could see that when the child's eyes caught the sun matched the large stone around their neck. "Can I swim?"

"I don't know," Derek asked, "can you?"

The child considered it, "I haven't before," they answered, "but I should be able to. It doesn't look hard."

"But you'd have to take your dress off," Derek said, "and you might get in trouble for ruining it otherwise."

The child gnawed on their lips, "I don't like my dress," he said, "but it has buttons on the back, Mama Evie was tired of me taking all my clothes off because my skirts get caught on things like branches and bushes and I like climbing trees but I'm supposed to wear a dress because Mama Evie says I'm special, I'm the only one who wears a dress like this, and sometimes they smell bad because they've been in a box so long and Mama Evie gets all frowny and goes "you just keep outgrowing your clothes, you're like a little weed, what are they feeding you, plant food and slurry for you're shooting up like a sapling, but I don' t think so, I know that sometimes Mama Evie has to put ribbons on the end of my sleeves because my arms are too long but even though she complains I know she doesn't mind because she tells me. She just thinks I'm growing up too fast because she says it won't be long before I'm too big for kisses. Are you too big for kisses?"

"I don't know," Derek answered, still treading water as the child sat on one of the rocks by the pond, barefoot and up to their knees with mud, "I get kisses from my sisters, but my uncle doesn't give me kisses, he's too busy but he might give me kisses if I asked, and I know that when you become a grown up then you can get special kisses, Truthful in the village told me that, and she kissed me on the forehead and told me to come back when I was all grown." 

"I like kisses," the child said, "we can make a promise that we can give each other kisses until we're grown and get special kisses then we never have to be too old for kisses and too young for special kisses." 

That seemed to Derek like a very sensible proposal indeed but it had one large proviso. "But I don't know who you are and you don't know who I am, why would you promise kisses to a stranger? It is a very bad thing to do. My uncle said I had to be wary of strangers and you are very strange."

The child's indignation was a whole body expression, with his arms crossed across the stomacher of their dress and their lower lip stuck out in an angry pout. "M'not strange," they continued deep in their sulk, "M'Stiles."

"That's a strange name," Derek said, "Stiles."

"No, it's not," the child, Stiles, said, "my Mama chose it, she says it's an important fam'ly name," they were still pouting. "You've got a strange name."

"But I haven't told you my name," Derek said.

The child hitched up their skirts in their hands and waded into the water until it was ankle deep, but at the back, their hems fell into the water. "you haven't told me because your name is strange," the child said. 

They had a temper, Derek saw and didn't like to be teased, but Derek enjoyed teasing them. It had been a long time since he had been able to have a friend for the sake of having a friend, or not because they were neighbors, or they were in the same class at school, just a friend for being a friend. "My name is Derek," he said. 

"That's a very strange name," the child said, "Mama Evie says that we have special names because we're special, so I'm Stiles because I'mma 'mega, and that means I'm a boy that can have babies and that means I'm rare and I have to wear special 'mega dresses."

"Being an omega isn't special," Derek said, "I have two sisters and they're both omega and that means they have to keep their skirts clean and their hair tidy, and they have to have their hair brushed with a hundred strokes before they go to bed, and they get scolded for trying to climb trees and if they take their shoes off and ruin their stockings, so you can't be an omega because your hair is so messy."

"Mama Evie brushes my hair," the child pouted, "but it hurts and she stops and says if you don't stop squirming I'll hit you with the brush, but she never does, Gerard says he's going to cut it off because he says he finds long hairs in his stew and it has to be mine, but it's not because I never go near the stew, but he's Katy's dad and Katy says that when I'm grown up she's going to marry me, and I don't want to marry Katy, she pinches my cheek and laughs when my dresses have ribbon cuffs because my arms are too long, and she doesn't listen when Mama Evie says to leave me alone, and she smells bad because she has a pipe and she smokes it in front of the fire, and sometimes she takes snuff and that makes her sneeze and it makes her meaner than usual, but because Katy says she's going to marry me no one else wants to so I get to go walking because no one watches over me and Mama Evie is too busy."

"You talk a lot," Derek said.

Stiles offered him a gap-toothed grin in exchange. "You don't talk a lot, so it's like we're perfect for each other because you don't tell me to stop talking you just listen and that means when I'm grown up you can marry me instead of Katy."

"What if when we're grown up you don't want to marry me?"

"I will," he said, hitching up his skirts even more than he had, baring skinny thighs to the sun, "I never go back on what I say, Mama Evie says that's very important, she says if you say you'll do a thing you have to do it or people won't trust you and then they'll short you, but I don't know what that is, I know it's bad, so if you say you're going to do a thing you have to do it, so when we're grown up we will get married."

That was the second thing that changed Derek's life, meeting Stiles that day by the waterfall that marked the border between Hale and Argent land, and he would sneak away every afternoon with a hair comb and a brush stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, with a ribbon around his wrist, and he would try and tame Stiles' hair. He found that for as much as Stiles talked, and he talked a lot, he was a good listener, but it was gone Christmas, when he had an orange in his pocket for the boy who had a shawl around his shoulders and was even wearing shoes, the toes stuffed with roving to make them fit, when he came to know that Stiles was an Argent.

He lay in his bed that night, in his private room that was cold despite the fire, wrapped up in his blankets with one of the hounds lying across the bottom of his bed to try and warm him, and considered it. Stiles was an Argent and the Argents had killed his parents, but Stiles was his best friend and listened and wanted to know about all the things that Derek had learned at school, and his sisters, but the Argents were bad people. The Argents stole livestock and burned crops, and they were highwaymen and the magistrate had hung more than one of them, but Stiles talked too much and sometimes pretended to be an animal and liked to climb trees and didn't swim very well but laughed with his whole body and when he pouted he wrapped his arms about himself and stuck his bottom lip out as far as he could, and his dresses were always either a little too big or too small and he put on Derek's coat and scarf and did an impression of Derek that made Derek laugh so hard his sides hurt and he wanted to take Stiles away from the Argents because Stiles was everything that was good and the Argents were everything that was bad and it made Derek confused.

He knew if he told his uncle, Peter, he would be told not to meet with Stiles anymore but after he had lessons in the village school he would do his chores as fast as he could so he could go and meet Stiles at the border of the Argent land and Derek wanted revenge against the Argents but he didn't want revenge against Stiles because Stiles hadn't done anything and Stiles was his friend and that meant that Derek just lay in bed and chewed over it until he fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

  
On the day that Derek turned sixteen he crept away from the preparations for the celebration, having completed his lessons with the Parson and the day's choring, he quickly washed up in a bucket by the fire of the back kitchen, where Peter, his sisters and the house woman Tara where preparing his supper and made jokes about him being a man now as if he were fully grown and not an odd collection of limbs with a voice that kept breaking into a childish soprano when he wasn't paying attention. The ladies in the village would laugh and go, don't you worry, lad, you'll grow into those ears like he wasn't all cheekbones and eyebrows and the rest of his face having lost its baby fat was now all angles and needed to be shaved, what felt like all of the time. Peter never seemed to need to shave nor have pimples. He pulled on his choring clothes because he was going exploring, although Peter knew he had a friend in the Argents he had not done anything to prevent it other than giving a few pointed words.

Peter did not know who that friend was, but he trusted Derek's judgement in that he had spoken plain that he would not have them in the house, even if they were Derek's sweetheart, which caused Derek to blush bright red, because he had no control of that part of his body either, and protest that it wasn't like that, that they were just friends, and Peter would raise an eyebrow and go back to his letters.

So Derek, in new shoes that fit no better than Stiles', because he would grow into them, he ran across the fields even as he pulled on his new great coat. He always met Stiles in the same place, a rock beside the small waterfall and pond where they went swimming, and they would sometimes walk and Derek would use a stick and the pond bank to help Stiles with his letters because as smart as Stiles was, and he was so smart he left Derek breathless sometimes, the Argents didn't bother with teaching him his numbers or letters, because Mama Evie was too busy and he couldn't go to the village school. Only Gerard could read, Stiles told him, and he read to them from the bible and it as all about punishing people who hurt you and how god would support them in the great fight to come, but Stiles didn't know what that great fight was about. Gerard always talked like that. Stiles didn't like him much. Lately, as the weather got worse and they huddled in a culvert under the rocks with a fire built Derek helped Stiles read from the bible and he would talk about Gerard.

Stiles didn't like Gerard. He would pinch his cheeks and make jokes about him still being a baby, but he would have babies of his own. He made comment on Stiles' dresses and called over his daughter, Katy, to mock Katy that she was going to have to marry a baby and not one of the doxies she dandled on her knee, and that she would have to drink so much to get it up for this mewling weakling but she would, because she was a good girl, and Mama Evie would interrupt and use her skirts as a shield to keep Stiles from Gerard and she would kiss his head and tell him that he was her good boy and that he should pay Gerard no mind, he was just a bitter old fool.

Mama Evie knew about their meetings, Stiles had told him, and she said it was well that if the children in the clan were too mean and short-sighted to see him for being a wonder she was glad that he had found someone who did. 

Derek liked Stiles, maybe not in the way that Peter teased him about, but he liked him. He liked that Stiles couldn't stop talking or how he knew the name of every bird in the trees because Mama Evie liked birds, and he had been crying and so scared as Derek helped a fox from a snare, and so brave holding it so that Derek could put some ointment on its hurt leg, sure that nothing was broken, and wrapping it with one of the ribbons that were stitched so badly onto Stiles' cuff so they trailed behind him. And there had been such wonder when Derek asked if he wanted to pet it, reaching out his hand to the animal that he had transferred to Derek's arms to make sure it was well, and touching the blaze on its chest like it was a miracle.

Stiles was a hundred contradictions formed into one amazing whole.

Derek enjoyed spending time with Stiles, even though he asked a hundred questions and his skirts were always catching on the things and his hair always looked like he was part hedgerow and he would laugh and cover his head with his arms when Derek teased him about evicting the field mice who clearly lived in it. He laughed with his whole body. His clothes never fit him, and were old, and sometimes Derek wondered if he would be better off taking some of Cora's old dresses, for she was just a little older than Stiles, before they went to the rag merchant and then Stiles would look like he was part of Derek's family. He would sit there thinking, rarely quiet, with his pendant pulled up and into his mouth as he sucked on it, moving it to the side when he spoke.

On the November day that Derek turned sixteen Stiles was not alone at the rocks, he stood there holding the hand of a woman who leaned heavily on the piled rocks, and when he saw Derek Stiles beamed, his smile was like the sun parting the clouds, "I told you, Mama," he said looking up at her, "I told you he would come."

Stiles was wearing a blanket over his dress and a fur hood out of which his black hair was a riot of tangles under the blanket. He had sack tied around his feet to protect his shoes from the November mud. He was holding her left hand, her right supported her on the rocks. She was a stocky woman, with black hair turning iron gray under a cap, and her gown was as well worn as those Stiles wore, but unlike him she wore no jewellery. She had a slight hook to her nose and a wide thin lipped mouth, and she looked much more stern than Stiles had told Derek that she was.

"Are you Derek Hale?" her voice was strained and tired.

"I am he, Madame, might I ask who I have the honour of addressing?" He might be a farm boy but both Peter and his own mama had drilled him in manners. He would inherit their farm and all that that meant, he had been sent away to school, he could be polite when it suited him.

"There is no time for that, boy," she said, and she stumbled, in doing so she let go of Stiles' hand and Derek could see a dark wet stain on the coat she wore, almost invisible against the dark grey wool, "promise me you'll look after him."

"I can get help," Derek said, stepping forward. 

She gave a long and tired sigh, "just look after my boy, I have no one else to ask." 

Derek pulled off his coat, then his jacket, before stripping off his shirt, using what strength he had he ripped off the sleeve, "no," he said, and pushed her hands away so he could see the wound. It was a stab wound and it was deep. He packed the sleeve into the wound, "you made it this far, it's only a mile, come on, Stiles, help me." He slipped in under her arm so he could wrap his arm around the good side of her. " Stiles clearly didn't know what to do. "Run to the big elm, and follow the path. When you get to the house ask for Peter, tell Peter that I'm on my way and to fetch the doctor, here," he handed Stiles his new greatcoat, "just like the fox, we're going to make it better."

He eased her a few paces at a time, "I'm for it, lad," she said, "Kate got me good."

"Save your strength," he told her, "we'll be there before you know it, and the doctor."

"Don't let her get him," she managed, even as she spat blood, she must have been holding back as much as she could, resting on the rock, waiting for Derek because she had no one else to turn to. If Kate was prepared to kill her there was nothing to prevent her doing that to Stiles, except Derek. 

"I won't," he said, "I won't let her, now save your strength, I won't let you die on me."

"I'm done for," she protested.

"If I have to carry you," Derek said, "I will, we're going to do this."

\---

 

Derek did have to carry her when they reached the lane but as the gate came in view two of the farm laborers came running up, they took her from him and Peter was there, "we've sent for the doctor, come in out of the cold," he put his hand on Derek's shoulder, "your lad came in shouting up a storm, I'm here, you can let go now, Derek, come and see, your omega is safe." 

Derek was tired, and his brain seemed to be running on instinct, he knew there was a threat and there was a den and he had to make it to the den. He could relax when he was knew that he was in the den, when he was warm and safe and his omega was warm and safe.

Stiles was sat at the fire, still wearing Derek's great coat and with his shoes off to show a toe sticking out of his stocking and a large ale cup in his hands which was steaming with Tara's stew and he was talking up a storm to Cora who was working to take in a pair of what looked like Derek's pants. Tara was sat behind him with a comb and a bowl of soapy water as she teased out the tangles, and when he saw Derek he beamed, his entire body seemed to smile, even as he saw all the blood covering Derek. "Derek," Stiles said, unable to be untangled from Tara as she tried to tame his hair, but clearly wanting to. "You didn't tell me it was your birthday," and like that he started to babble, talking about the stew that Tara made with powdered mutton and milk and nutmeg and how it was so good, and that Laura was so pretty and Cora was too but she didn't like it when people called her pretty, and how nice his house was, and that their dog, an old thing called Carter who barely cared for anything but feet that moved him from in front of the stove, had come over and he had licked his face and how the cats didn't care for him. 

He had nothing but praise for them, and how Peter was scary but he didn't make Stiles scared the way that Kate did and he wanted to know that Mama Evie was alright because he knew she was sick, but if Derek was getting the doctor then he was sure that she was going to be well, and Derek didn't know what to say, what to tell him, but Tara was there going, "the doctor will do all that he can, pup," she had called Derek and his sisters the same, "tomorrow is a new day and will bring new challenges, but for now the challenge will be casting all these field mice from your head," and that just made Stiles beam again, gap-toothed and incandescent as he said that's what Derek said, but he was just careful when he went through hedgerows to find those with fruit that the field mice liked best not sure how to react to her easy embrace. For all that Stiles was tactile, always reaching out to touch Derek's arms or hands, he stiffened when people caged him in, realising it Tara let him go.

Derek, wearing only his jacket sat down on the stool beside Stiles and leaned in towards him, that part of his mind that seemed to function entirely on its own, trying to get him to safety to make sure that Stiles was safe finally easing and he could relax.

 

\---

Evelyn Argent died under the doctor's hands, although the doctor, a quixotic gentleman called Deaton, said it had more to do with alpha stubbornness than health that saw her live as long as she did with a stab wound to her ribs. She had been bleeding out for some time before Derek found her, but yet knowing his family's history with hers she had not shown up at his house to ask for help. The only aid she had asked was for Stiles.

Peter, who was with her at the end, agreed to protect the boy, to raise him with the Hales, and to keep him from Kate, which Derek would later decide that Peter had done it to spite Gerard as opposed to aiding Stiles, but he found the boy clothes, those clothes kept in storage that had been Derek's, kept for rags, before urging him into bed between Cora and Laura, Carter huffing and plodding, as if every step was a great chore, to join the omegas in their wide bed.

Derek, letting out a deep breath at seeing Stiles sleep, he had been inconsolable until Laura just wrapped her arms around him and held him until he eventually softened into her arms and cried on her shoulder until he was mostly asleep, his belly full, warm and exhausted from the events of the day, and there he lay, sprawled across the mattress forcing the girls to take the places left, just leaned against the door frame and watched them.

"You know this will mean war, pup," Peter said. "They'll come for him just because they consider him theirs."

Derek looked up at his uncle, yet to have his full height but determined to make his will clear, "let them come."


	3. Chapter 3

Evelyn Argent was laid to rest in the small graveyard that served the village of Malmsmead and had the terrible problem of being the church that served the area that the Argents preyed upon most. Despite this, the Argents never attended church and were buried in their own lands where none would bother them. They were a lawless sort and in the days following Evelyn's death they had upped their aggression, doing more than just stealing sheep and occasionally robbing travelers on the highway. They had attempted to burn an outbuilding of a neighbor's family and as such the village and all the farms nearby had roused against them.

The entire Hale family, even Tara, attended the woman's funeral, more for Stiles' benefit than her own. Tara had decided that Stiles' hair was to be neat, even if it killed her, and currently he stood, wearing Derek's old clothes and holding her hand, with his hair in a braid around his head and a hat on top to help protect him from the November cold. Although it was too early in the winter for snow the threat of it carried on the wind, and the air was sharp with cold. Stiles had been bundled up in Derek's old wool pants and jacket, with two blankets wrapped around his shoulders. 

Stiles had been given the choice if he had wanted to continue wearing dresses, where they would be found or purchased for him, and most likely inherit those that Cora, at twelve, was outgrowing, or if he wanted to wear pants and dazzled by the novelty of it Stiles had chosen pants and had stood stretching out his legs in them, all motions that he could do in his skirts but now he could see it happen. 

He had been alternately bright and bubbling over with personality and quiet and morose, sitting on the bench with the old dog, Carter, who was not usually allowed on the furniture and was enjoying the momentary disobedience allowed because Stiles was crying into his fur as the dog rested his head, long ears drooping, against the boy's neck. Then five minutes later they were romping around the courtyard, the old dog barking with joy and wiggling his tail like he had not done in years and Peter, carrying a basket full of laundry for the wash-house, would shake his head and smile to himself at their antics.

Stiles bedded down with Cora and Laura, who both complained about it the next morning for not only did the boy kick and fling his arms about like a whirligig when he did lie still it was taking up as much of the bed as his frame would allow, and Peter would kiss Cora on the forehead and remind her that Laura would soon be married and then there would be more room in the bed.

With the Argent predations increasing Peter had sent word to Lord Beecham, whom Laura was to marry, and he had arrived, staying in the village as was proper, but had brought with him twenty men to supplement their numbers. He was a tall and proper gentleman with sharp bright eyes under a fall of sandy brown hair, and a patrician nose which Stiles, who had fewer manners than Carter, had commented upon. Lord Beecham, who insisted that they call him Duke, short for Deucalion, had, with eyes glittering with mirth, pushed up the end of his nose and said: "and now it's like yours, vidame." 

Laura had not cared for the young boy making eyes, as she called it, at the alpha who was to be hers, and so to attract his attention, as if he had eyes for anyone but her - he looked at her like she had descended from the heavens in a shower of gold and coins - she wore her finest dress and her jewelry and styled her hair just so so it was exactly like a picture she had seen in the fashion pages that came to her from London. At eighteen Laura was nearly of age so Peter pretended not to notice the two taking long walks to the village together and trusted in their honor.

That day at the graveyard Stiles stood with his hand in Tara's looking like a pile of cloth with a little hand sticking out of it, across the grave from Derek, who was so careful of where Stiles was, and Peter when none other than Kate Argent rode up to the church gates. "Hale!" she barked out, she didn't get down from her horse, but everyone at the grave prepared for a fight, Tara tugging Stiles so that he stood before her and she used her body to shield him. Evelyn Argent had died to protect the child and Tara was the one who spent the most time with her and Deucalion's hand went to the pistol on his belt but did not pull it free. "You have something that belongs to me."

"All the feelings that I have for you those you can have freely," Peter said, he did not change his body language and just stood firm, next to Cora who Kate's eyes were fixed upon. Kate was a rangy blonde alpha, with hair the colour of straw and she might have been fair if not for the callous regard that she gave her appearance, wearing a leather greatcoat, open to show her shirt and leather vest, and brown leather pants that were stained with oil and use, the hat on her head was almost shapeless. She wore a bandolier from which hung both an old military rapier and pistol.

"Do not be obtuse, Hale, it doesn't suit you," she sneered, holding the horse, a handsome brown gelding, firm with her thighs. The wind was picking up in the black trees, the branches of the sycamore starting to whip about, it caught Kate's hair and blew it to the side, as Cora scrabbled at the blanket she wore when the rising wind caught under it. "You have my omega."

Peter smiled, and it was wolfish and seemed to show too many teeth, his jaw dipping just a little into his neck in a manner that was threatening, and in the momentary silence, there was the click of Deucalion cocking his pistol. "This is my niece," he said putting his hand on her shoulder, "Cora, you can check her birth in the Parish records, well you could if stepping into the church would not see the nave collapse upon you and the vicar shoot you dead on sight. I appreciate you haven't met her, I don't let my family mingle with scum." Kate's nostril's flaring with the only sign of her distaste. "Nor murderers, you know of course that Evelyn had the chance to tell the magistrate whose knife slipped between her ribs, I wouldn't linger long in town, Kate, or you might find yourself dancing a jig on the gallows." Peter made a motion with his head to the village square where the hanging tree stood. It was a large oak with a bough stout enough to support five men. 

"I should slit your throats and take the omega," Kate sneered, "I could be back in the Argent Valley before the magistrate gets his men here."

"And how long, Argent, before my men get here?" His voice was measured and calm, "knowing that I would be paying respects they are only a shout away, and could you get to me before I get my shot off? If I fired straight up there would be twenty armed military men here ready to kill on my word, are you sure you want to play this game?"

Kate swore, her horse twisting under her, "this isn't the last of it, Hale, I'll have what is mine."

"As I said, Katy," Peter sneered, "you can have my disgust any time just for the asking. I am on hallowed ground and that is all that saves you now, I will not ruin this funeral with violence, I am not sure that my gentleman guest will honor the same rules."

Kate Argent, with a curse, spurred her horse on into a gallop down the road.

Stiles turned and buried his face into the front of Tara's dress, his tiny fists wrapping around her waist, blanket at all, "don't you worry, moppet," she said softly, "we'll never let her take you." She picked him up although at ten he should be too big for that, she did it as easily as she picked up the laundry basket, settling him on her hip just as comfortably, "you're our moppet now, and that's all that matters."

\---

In the weeks that followed the Argent aggression was reduced by the weather, it was a hard and bitter winter that year and the snow fell almost as deep as the house. The livestock was led in from the fields and stored in barns, and the entire village chipped in with labor and with what they had, even if it wasn't much. It was a sight to see Lord Deucalion in moleskin pants chasing a sheep that it might join it's fellows and Laura laughing with delight, with a blanket over her head and a full fleece over her shoulders.

Full of love for the man that she would marry Laura was determined to make peace with Stiles, even if he did kick and stab her with elbows like knives, claiming to her Uncle Peter that they were like little pickaxes in bed. She had a sketchbook bought in London and fine pencils for sketching, and for the first week she would sit by the fire and draw everything that caught her eye: the flower jug that sat on the mantle; Carter lying on his back in front of the stove with his legs akimbo; Tara mending stockings and Peter trying to answer legal enquiries at his desk with wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose and a perpetual frown.

"Stiles," she began that day at dinner, "might I draw your necklace, it's very fine and I would like a copy made when I get to London, will that be well?"

Stiles chewed on a large piece of goat that was in the stew and looked across at Derek and Peter, still chewing, for dried goat was tough no matter how Tara cooked it, before he spoke. "You have to be careful with it," he said, "my mama gave it to me, my real mama, not Mama Evie, she died when I was a baby and I don't remember her, but she gave me this necklace so it's very special, Mama Evie said that my father, he's dead too, gave it to my mama and that it's full of love that's why I'm never to open it because if I do all the love will escape and I can't get any more." He reached up behind his neck for the clasp, "do you promise to be careful?" Laura did and it was only then that Stiles, who had struggled with the clasp, handed it over. "You must be very careful."

"Stiles," Peter said, "when Laura is finished sketching it would you like me to put it in the family strong box so it is safe and nothing can happen to it, if it's so special?" 

Stiles took another mouthful of stew and chewed meaningfully before he answered. "Yes, please," he said, "it seems silly but it's all I have and I don't know them but I want to know them, was my mama very pretty? was my papa brave? I don't know, I only know that they died when I was a baby, so if you can put it away safe that would be good because then I can't lose it even if the chain breaks. It broke before and Mama Evie had to find another chain for it, and we had to lift up all the furniture to find it.

Peter assured him that they would care for it better than they took care of themselves.

Laura even stood up at the table and kissed Stiles on the forehead, holding the chain around her fist. "I'll draw it straight away," she said like she was a child and not a woman already fully grown, "and we can put it away safe before anything bad happens to it."

\---

The winter was cold and hard and everyone was glad to see the spring roll around even if it meant that the Argents would start again their predations, snatching livestock and waylaying the wagons of merchants until those merchants and post carriages started to take the less preserved road that took them around Malmsmead so that the locals had to travel to the next town to trade or collect their mail and then they travelled with a rifle or blunderbuss as well as family swords or the lumber axes just in case.

Free of being cooped up in the house Stiles exploded into the courtyard, to the barn where the kittens were new and playful, where Lass, the working sheepdog, had her puppies who were tumbling balls of fur and the sheep were lambing, the new lambs gamboling about with the same clumsy grace that was Stiles' own. He did his chores, the same as everyone else on the farm, grousing about them, like everyone else, but liked the ones that involved the animals the most and most mornings were full of his bursts of laughter as Lass worked as hard to herd him as she did with the sheep, and Carter waddling behind him.

Tara kept his hair neat, bound up around his ears like a crown and she would sit of an evening and brush it out with soap and water, singing as she did so, the boy sat on a stool in front of her, chattering on to anyone who would listen, or bickering with Cora, or sitting still for Laura to sketch him, whilst Derek watched on, amazed at how quickly Stiles had become part of his family.

Peter had said that the boy was not to have lessons in the village with Cora, both Laura and Derek were old enough now that they no longer attended, for it would be too easy for him to be snatched on the road, even if Cora walked accompanied by Deucalion's man, Ennis, who was built like a bear and growled at anyone who came to close to her.

That spring had a sadness to the sweet for everyone knew that Laura would be married on Mayday and would leave for London, and this would be her last in Exmoor with her family. They knew that she loved the man she would marry and was eager to leave for London which held a special allure like it was a paradise and not just a city and that she would be at court, although in the lower echelons of such, but it was like they had gained a brother to lose a sister and that hung heavy over them that spring.

It also carried the threat that Deucalion's men would be leaving with him, and they would lose that extra protection against the Argents.

Which was why it came as a surprise when Gerard Argent proposed a peace summit.

He and his daughter, Kate, would meet with Hale when it was convenient for the war between the two families was wearing both down, and as he settled into advanced age, with the new responsibility of leading his family, he wanted more ease between them.

Peter didn't trust him one whit; but knew that he had no real choice. Malmsmead needed him to broker a peace for it to have any real ease over the harvest months.

He had to agree, and so he arranged for the Argents to visit the Hale house whilst Stiles was visiting Oare, a nearby village where the farm traded its fleece.


	4. Chapter 4

It was arranged that the Argent peace conference as the people of Malmsmead came to call it would take place in the alehouse next to the town square, in the shadow of the Hanging Tree, but even with Lord Beecham's twenty men at arms it was clear that the magistrate would not have the military force to arrest even one, but the show of armed men would prevent the Argents hurting anyone, or worse, snatching Stiles which seemed to be their intent.  
  
To keep the boy from both mischief and the reach of the Argents he was taken to the nearby town of Oare to help Derek with selling off some of the spring fleeces to the weavers there, which saw them accompanied by Beecham's man, Ennis, and Cora who had declared that she wanted new ribands for Laura's upcoming wedding. 

Seeing an opportunity to have the three of them in relative safety with a few of the farm laborers to help, as well as putting more responsibility on Derek who would one day have to manage the farm Peter was glad to see them go, waving them off at dawn with knapsacks of dried biscuit to eat on the way.

When he was told of the plan Stiles had thrown a tantrum that would have made Cora proud, collapsing to the floor in a strange fashion that baffled both alphas until Laura declare he was sinking into his skirts and asked where it was that he had learned such a thing. Rather than scold him, as perhaps was deserved, Laura pulled out her sketchbook and drew the boy in his sulk. "You, boy, are a proper bucket of frogs, aren't you?" Peter asked him, stepping over the child in his tantrum rather than breaking him from it, "you have more energy than ten children, and most of those ten would have happy to go to the next town, they have a fine bakery which makes the sweetest empire biscuits in Exmoor," but even the promise of what was Stiles' favorite treat was not enough to sway him. He wanted to face down Kate because she had killed his Mama Evelyn and he would not be swayed.

Then he was roused from his bed an hour before dawn, dressed with a scone put in his hand to eat and put on the wagon next to Cora. He was, Derek later confided, several miles down the road before he was awake enough to complain.

\---

The winter, which had been unseasonably cold and vicious, had kept the Argent predations and their new expansionist policy, espoused by their new leader, Gerard, but with the spring they had become much more prevalent. It was said that the king might even send men to secure the roads but the king was infirm and it would be weeks before any complement of armed men could arrive, especially if armed, and in that time the Argents would simply vanish into the moors, and those that lived in the valley would deny the alphas and beta men accused of the crime, if they did not alibi them. It had been like that for the past hundred years since they had arrived, displaced from France and seeking to establish themselves in Exmoor.

Their new lord, if such a word could be applied, was a man just past his prime called Gerard, who was the father of the despicable Kate. He had a solid frame that spoke to years on horseback, and a fine seat upon the horse he rode into Malmsmead, head held high as if he was the lord of the area. He had perhaps twenty, if not more, years on Peter, and wore a fashion that would have served better under the old Puritan regime than the newly restored monarchy. His moleskin pants were stained and marked with powder burns, and like his daughter, he wore a saber on a bandolier over his chest. Unlike her leather vest holding back a loose linen blouse, with a cloak over it, he had chosen a heavy wool greatcoat that his sleeves ballooned from and a black felt hat that, again unlike his, was finely shaped. He looked very much like a highly ranked man in Cromwell's army although he couldn't have been more than a child when the king was restored.

Peter had never seen Gerard before but he was not surprised by his appearance. He had a bald head with silvery hair, narrow eyes and when he spoke it was as if he wore false teeth which slipped around in his mouth. He carefully enunciated every word and punctuated them with small flecks of spittle.

Like Stiles' gowns had been everything looked out of date,  and well worn, patched instead of replaced. The Argent family's lawless nature meant that they had no real method of making wealth of their own, they spent so much of their time preying on everything around them, that other than tubs of things like dandelions to prevent them starving there was no real industry, and it was well known if word got out that if people were transporting liquor they were guaranteed that the Argents would snatch it.

It had been one of those things that Peter knew academically but this was the first time he had come face to face with an Argent dressed in their best, and not on their way to the gibbet. He had not been in Malsmead for the original war that had seen his sister and her omega dead, being in Bristol where he had practiced law instead of now working from the Hale house. 

The Argents were poor. They were not poor because the land that they had snatched was poor, but because they were convinced of their own superiority and should be treated like feudal lords and not as hard working Exmoor gentleman farmers like their neighbors.

Gerard had pretensions of being a king in his little valley and Kate, particularly, enjoyed the perks of being treated like an empress who was guaranteed her will. When Evelyn had questioned it, Kate, drunk- according to her aunt- had slipped her knife between her aunt's ribs and laughed.

It said so much of Evelyn that Stiles was not the wilful brat that everyone assumed that he would be. The only bad behavior he was given to, apart from being into everything with a rampant curiosity even when he had been told not to because he might get hurt, was the occasional tantrum where he collapsed into skirts he wasn't wearing. He was impish, in the way young children of ten or so years old were, but he was well behaved. Peter had come to enjoy their evenings as he helped Stiles learn his letters and mathematics, Stiles crammed on his knee under the desk Peter had to spend so much of the evening and into the night at, managing his law firm entirely by correspondence, as they worked over a printed bible and a copy of Marcus Aurelius. 

Stiles was bright and curious and well behaved.

The rest of the Argents were thuggish brutes determined to get their own way, through violence if they decided that it was necessary.

Peter did not, for even a moment, that the Argents wanted peace, but the people of Malmsmead did so he could not refuse.

He knew that the Argents were up to something but on that one chance, that one forlorn hope, he had to agree to the meeting.

\---

Oare was not a large town, barely larger than Malmsmead but it had better trade access because it was on the outer region of the area that the Argents preyed on. It had a draper and a general store, so whilst Old Euan, the prime laborer on the Hale farm, haggled over the fleeces Derek, with Ennis stood behind him like the threat of violence, took Cora and Stiles to get new clothes, ribands from their small allowance, and shoes.

Stiles had sulked for perhaps the first two miles of their journey, then the novelty of travelling caught him, and stuffing half of Cora's scone into his mouth he chattered about birds and animals and hedgerows and other people in carts and horses in the fields and trees and anything that caught his fancy. Derek was dazzled by his energy, and although he was still round with baby fat and perhaps years from puberty he was no longer a baby and resembled more, according to Tara who said this with a fond smile and a damp cloth to wipe jam or honey from Stiles' cheeks, a little monkey like the ones in Barbary. His limbs were long and stick thin and he had a round little belly where the good cooking from the Hale farm was stuffed at every opportunity. Had he a tail he couldn't have gotten up to more mischief.

The new town was clearly the furthest that Stiles had ever been, although both Hales had been to Taunton, and he was dazzled by the stores, of which were there five, and sat down on the cobbler's bench to get his feet measured chattering all the way about how interesting it was that the alpha made shoes and did he know the baker because the baker had given him comfits, possibly to silence the boy thinking, mistakenly, that if she filled his mouth he might stop talking - he hadn't.

The omega's loquacious nature allowed Derek the opportunity to be quiet. He was not, by nature, given to long conversations, he listened and he had the same biting wit that was a Hale family trait, and of an evening he was given to squabble with his sister with his voice just as loud as theirs but mostly he was quiet, letting others fill the silences. He did not put himself forward but when it was time to make his will known it was done clearly and firmly, and was immediately overruled by his sisters bickering much louder than he had started the argument as.

Stiles wanted to go into every store, no matter how irrelevant they were to him, he wanted to talk to the shopkeepers and had been delighted by the inn where they had their luncheon because there were lots of people for him to talk to, including laborers supping a quick cup of ale after the morning's chores, no matter how they ducked their eyes under their hats to try and avoid his attention. 

He told anyone and everyone about how they had come here when it was still dark, and that he had new shoes and a new coat and some fabric for shirts and he had been given comfits and a sweet bun and that there was the best puddle outside the church and he had jumped in it and the splash had gone as tall as his head. He was completely unaware that his behavior was allowed because of the giant alpha behind him glaring at anyone who dared question him. 

The old parson from the church, the one with the large puddle in front of it, had taken one look at the pair of them and turned on his heel and left at a fast clip in case he be asked either something by the boy or more likely be asked to explain that the boy's behaviour was a little more rambunctious than was preferred and if they could rein him in a little.

Cora was pretending at least that she was a perfectly mannered princess. She trailed along behind, quiet and apparently contemplative but quiet enough that Derek kept one wary eye on her convinced that she was up to something. She had not even joined Stiles in jumping in that very large puddle. It had been quite inviting and Derek had not refused the opportunity simply because he was considered too old. Even Ennis had looked at it like he too wanted to launch himself in with both feet.

Nevertheless when Old Euan had finished haggling with the wool trader and returned with a purse of coins and a receipt, something Peter always insisted on, they called back on the bakers, purchased a few of the day's leavings of scones, so that everyone would have something to eat on the journey, accepted the little loaf for Stiles, heaped high with clotted cream, as she pinched his cheek and mentioned putting fat on his wrists for they looked like sycamore branches, and they all climbed back on the wagon to return to the farm, Cora showing Stiles the ribands that she had purchased, one for Laura and two for her to wear on Mayday, one for the wedding itself and one for the Mayday festivities, and Stiles who had never seen a silk riband until he had come to the Hale house, was suitably appreciative and they spent the entire journey home talking about their new clothes.

 

\---

Peter had been right, he lamented as he stabled his horse, taking down the tack brush, Gerard had no interest in peace. He made ludicrous demands and then blamed them when they would not meet them, as if paying the Argents a fee of ten pounds a year and allowing them the first choice of their livestock had even the possibility of being granted. He was more tired than he thought he could be for having spent the day sitting in a common room talking. Gerard had postured, Peter had stood firm, Peter had offered Gerard had refused without option of compromise. When Gerard complained about the stony ground being poor for livestock several farmers offered him goats which would thrive, enough between them to make up a herd, Gerard refused them as if the idea of manual labor physically sickened him, even if there were enough alpha and beta men to more than manage an estate let alone their small valley. When he complained that crime was their only option because of their lack of goods to trade because of that poor soil it was pointed out that at least one previous tenant had stepped the land for grapes and it could be attempted again. He had blustered that he had not the money for vines and again the farmers offered to put in together to provide them, and to help through those first years.

Gerard refused them all. 

He demanded a living.

He was refused.

And so it went back and forth for several hours until, still hampered by long winter nights, it became apparent that people would need to leave to return to their farms before nightfall and the meeting would have to be adjourned.

Gerard, unable to get his own way, left in a temper.

Peter thanked them all for coming, paid for the ale that Argent had ordered but then left without paying for, and went back to his horse and his farm.

He was enjoying the simple physical task of preparing his horse after her ride when Tara found him, crying and wringing a cloth between her hands, "Mr. Peter," she said, and Tara was not a woman given to histrionics or vast displays of emotion, "I tried to stop them, I did, but the Argents, they came when you were all out, and they robbed us."

Peter realized then what Gerard's plan had been, he had distracted all of those who had access to firearms and robbed them in their absence. He was caught because although he had not foreseen the robbery he had been prescient enough to remove Stiles from the house that he might not be taken. "What did they take?" he asked. He was mentally cataloging the expensive items in the house, the jewelry Deucalion had given Laura for courting, the porcelain dogs on the mantle, the silver tableware kept in a locked box in the sideboard.

"Your letter box," Tara said, and it was clear then why she was crying. Goods could be replaced, Peter knew, and Peter's correspondence would mean nothing to the Argents, but it had been where he had kept the most precious items that the family-owned, the wedding rings of his sister and her husband, the silver bracelet that had been his gift to Laura when she was born and the amber locket that Stiles had worn around his neck.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles was inconsolable at the loss of the necklace, exactly as Peter had thought that he would be. He had bounded into the house, full of stories of his day, and how people were so nice to him and how he had gotten candies and a sweet bun and new shoes, he had never had new shoes before and shoes that were measured to his feet no less, and he had looked at Peter and asked what was wrong. 

Peter took him into the office where they did their lessons, where there was a fire in the grate and sat him down in the official looking chair that Stiles never sat in facing the desk when Peter was teaching him and told him everything. He apologized and admitted he knew that he could not understand but that he would get the pendant back if it killed him. It would just take time. He told him, kneeling on the floor in front of the chair and said he knew how much the pendant meant to Stiles and that he had been supposed to protect him and the necklace but that he had been so caught up in protecting Stiles that he forgot to be as wary as he normally was and he that he was sorry.

Stiles wanted to say he understood, but he didn't. He had in the past few months lost everything, his world was his pendant and Mama Evie who lived with him in a cottage in the Argent valley and he knew when he was grown he would have to marry Kate but he told anyone who listened, and in the valley no one had, that he was going to marry Derek Hale and then Kate had killed Evelyn and she had brought him here, where everything was different. Suddenly there was always enough food to eat and Tara heaping more on his plate if he wanted it. There was Cora and Laura who treated him like the baby of the family, even if they whined that he ran to Marathon in his sleep. There was Carter who followed him around and there was even Deucalion who teased him harmlessly. There was Derek who was his rock, even if he could not have processed that yet, he knew that as long as Derek was there that all would be well because Derek would not let anything happen to him. There was Peter who was teaching him to read and his numbers and had books which he let him read, as long as his fingers weren't sticky. There were animals and toys and so many things he had not realized that he was lacking. He would get into bed between Cora and Laura, for Laura worried that he would fall out of the bed otherwise, and fall asleep clutching his pendant which he was convinced contained all the love his mama, his real mama who had died when he was a baby, had for him.

The actual pendant as a physical object meant nothing to him, he was too little to truly understand how precious a golden pendant with a piece of amber from Russia with a clasp was. It was priceless to Stiles not because it was so valuable, and it was, but because of what it represented - the love of a mother he could not remember. That was what the Argents had stolen from Stiles, the one last thing he had kept for himself.

"I don't know her name," he had sobbed into Peter's shoulder, for as soon as the tears started Peter pulled him in tight to his chest, "my mama, I don't even know her name." 

Peter wanted to be able to say we can look it up in the parish records, but it wasn't true, because the Argents didn't record their births and deaths in the parish register, they were a godless sort who didn't bother with the church. He couldn't even go to the church and look and tell the boy the name of his parents, all he could do was press him into his chest as he sobbed and wailed, and when Derek came in, convinced his uncle was torturing the boy because of the noises he was making, Peter let Derek take his place, hefting the boy on his hip, like Tara did, like he was a basket of laundry and carried him to the bench where he could settle down in Derek's lap and wail out his loss.

He cried himself to sleep that night, tucked up in Derek's arms.

The next morning he was disconsolate, Peter went into town and came back with a basket. "I know it's not the same," he said, "but this might help,"

Stiles wiped at his red eyes and ran his sleeve under his nose, wiping up the mucus into the wool of his jacket, and took the basket, pulling back the cover and revealing a black and white puppy who as soon as he saw the light became alive with energy and started wriggling and climbing out of the basket and trying to lick his face and push Stiles down with surprisingly large paws. "Carter's getting on a bit," Peter said, "and he's finding it harder and harder to get in the bed," that was clearly a lie and Carter took offense at it giving Peter a glare that should have curdled milk, "and he can't keep up when you are running about," that was true, "so, until I get your pendant back he can keep you company."

"He's mine?" Stiles asked, for the first time that day he started to look anything other than disconsolate. 

"He's all yours," Peter said, "he'll be yours to take care of, and your responsibility, you'll have to take him out for long walks, and if he makes a mess you'll have to clean it, but he's all yours, you get to name him, and," he drew it out, "Tara has been cleaning out the small store," it had been Peter's room when he was a child and over the years things had just found their way in there simply because there was space there and it had quickly become full of things that were useful but never used, "and we'll put a bed in there for you, all of your own, because with Laura getting married then it means you and Cora can have a bed each." It was an apology, but it was all Peter had to offer. 

"You're family now, moppet," Laura dropped a kiss on Stiles' head, "and that means we get to spoil you because you're the baby."

Stiles reacted to that with the protestation that he was not the baby but by taking his eyes off the puppy it took the opportunity to lick his face even more which made him laugh and with the puppy licking him and Laura tickling him he was lost to giggles, protesting that he wasn't a baby.

"Thank you," Derek said softly to his uncle.

"For what?" Peter said, genuinely surprised that Derek had asked him, then he turned to Tara, "is that cheese pie for supper?"

Tara who had, years before, promised Peter to keep the secret of his soft heart, just smiled and took the distraction, "Cheese and onion," she said, "it occurred to me we hadn't had it for some time, and I know it's your favorite," 

"I've not had cheese and onion pie," Stiles managed to say, holding the fat wriggling puppy under one arm, "is it nice."

"It's my favorite," Peter said, "and Tara makes the very best cheese and onion pie in all the world."

"Oh, I'm sure it's not the very best," Tara said wiping her hands on her apron, "but it is very good."

"I like cheese," Stiles admitted, "and I like pie, and I like onions, so I imagine I'll like it," Stiles said that very carefully, "but if I could try it before supper then I'd know for sure."

"Moppet," Tara said with a hint of disapproval, "it's not going to be ready for a while, but you can try it then," like Laura had she dropped a kiss on Stiles' head, "now I'm sure that little bundle of joy is happy to go and play in the courtyard, why don't you show him around, and you can think of a name for him. You can put him down, he's got four legs of his own."

Stiles did as he was told, and the puppy followed along behind him towards the door, before he turned back and then went to Peter and kissed him on the cheek, "thank you," he mumbled, and then ran to the door, the puppy running along beside him.

\---

Derek stood at the door of Stiles' new bedroom watching the boy sleep. Peter came over and stood beside him for a few moments before he spoke. The boy was a sprawl of limbs mostly covered by a blanket with the puppy draped over his chest and Carter over one arm. "He seems so peaceful in sleep," he said, "like he was in play and just slept where he dropped." He shook his head. "I have never seen the like." 

Then he sighed and it was a sound most unusual for him, "he is a sweet thing when he has no reason to be, the world has been naught but cruel to him but still he is bright and cheerful, I wished to burn the Argents to the ground for what they did to my sister, now I wish them to survive it, to live in pain, trapped by it, to truly suffer for what they did to that boy. And he does not blame them, he's angry, certainly, but then he runs out to play because he knows naught else, only the suffering they have wrought upon him." He walked into the room and covered Stiles with the blanket more securely. "I feel almost paternal, quick, Derek, you must write it down before the mood changes so all the world will know on this day Peter Hale felt paternal."

"Almost," Derek said.

"Yes," Peter swept the long dark hair away from Stiles' face, "almost."

\---

Laura Hale married Lord Deucalion Beecham and became Lady Beecham in the morning of the first of May as the sukebind started to bloom and the air was sweet from a dawn rain. The village was dressed for the festival of the first of the month, where strips of dyed yarn, picked over the previous month from bushes and fences and stained with lichens and onion skins, decorated the fences and trees and a long pole, whitewashed and kept carefully over the year, were string with brightly coloured ropes that the children would knot around the pole in a careful dance that was as much laughter as musicality. Laura was dressed in a fine new gown of verdant green and a crown of hawthorn branches, complete with blossoms, was woven through her dark hair. She took, for that day, the role of both Lady of the May and the spring bride, representing rebirth and joy and all the good things of the summer to come.

Worrying about Argent interference Peter had arranged for all of the laborers to join Lord Beecham's men to watch the roads. Laura would only get to be a bride once, after all, even if she had been the Lady of the May two years before.

Cora had a new dress, almost as fine as that of her sister, and her hair was fixed with blossoms, and Stiles pouted until branches were woven into his hair that they would match. Derek and Peter put on their finest and took Laura to Malmsmead in a wagon that had also been dressed with ribands and flowers. Tara was still sticking blossoms in Stiles' hair, the puppy left behind crying with Carter who was more upset at the lack of a fire in the grate than their absence, when they pulled up at the church.

Laura was beautiful, carefully climbing down and letting Peter guide her to the church door. "Are you sure?" he asked her.

"I've never been more sure of anything, Uncle Peter," he kissed her on the forehead and let Derek open the door. Seeing the look of wonder and love on Deucalion's face Derek felt a soft sadness for he wondered if anyone would ever love him like that, and then there was Stiles pulling on his jacket and whispering in what he thought was quiet but could probably be heard across the village that one day that they would be wed, but he wanted a winter wedding for their ceremony so that he could have a holly crown.

Then he took a very serious face and walked, arm in arm with Cora behind Laura.

"I'm thinking about sending Cora and Stiles to school in Bristol," Peter said, "I have a colleague who married a governess, she's offered to take them in, prepare them for society, it would give them every advantage we couldn't," Peter sighed, "although the house will be very empty without them." He looked at Derek, "he loves you now," he said, and put his hand on Derek's shoulder, "but you're the first person to ever offer him kindness, that wasn't his Mama Evie, as everything falls apart you've been his standard, his fixed point." He looked at Laura walking down the aisle to an alpha who adored her. "He should have the opportunity to choose."


	6. Chapter 6

After much argument Peter eventually agreed that Stiles and Cora would attend schooling in Bristol in increments of no more than three weeks at a time, and that considering it was only a few hours journey by cart to Bristol and that someone trustworthy would be making the journey with them, for Lord Beecham had left his man Ennis to help the farm at Laura's insistence, that they could spend three weeks with Peter's colleague, and then return for one week. It had been a hard-won battle that saw Peter only admit defeat when Tara chimed in that she would not be happy with the house so empty when there were already children to fill it. And that, Peter had to admit or face having to run the household entirely on his own as well as the farm he was training Derek to manage and the law firm in Bristol, was that. It was not often that Tara put her foot down but she did in that instance.

Cora was in two minds about the whole thing for she was eager to live in a city and see all of the things that a city could offer, even if it was only Bristol, and she said that with some disdain because Laura was in London and Laura would see the king and Cora would see the inside of her schoolroom and Bristol.

Stiles ran out of the room in a flood of tears with his puppy barking beside him unsure what to do when its master was upset and it wanted to fix it and then distraught when Stiles slammed the door and locked the poor beast outside the room. Derek opened the door and saw Stiles draped over his bed crying as if he was sure he would get into trouble for disturbing the blankets, picking up his spaniel pup and holding it to his face, letting it lick furiously, as Derek sat on his bed. "You're sending me away," he said, looking up at Derek through lashes glued together with tears, "you don't want me anymore."

Derek hated the lack of words he felt in that moment. He wanted to console the boy but he didn't know what to say. He wanted to crush him to his chest but that was inappropriate for Stiles was not his brother and he was an omega and Derek an alpha and all too aware of his own burgeoning alphadom. "Stiles," he said, finally, "I will never send you away," Stiles wiped at his turned up nose with the cuff of his sleeve. He did it so often that Tara had said she would have to sew buttons there to discourage him like the navy did. "I will never not want you." 

Stiles didn't think it was inappropriate to climb onto Derek's knee the way that he did with Peter although he was too old for such behavior, he wrapped his arms around Derek, making room for the wriggling liver colored puppy on their lap. "I don't want to go to Bristol."

"I don't want you to go to Bristol," Derek admitted, "but you have to go, it's not fair to keep you here."

"It is fair," Stiles protested. "I'll go away and you'll forget me and then I won't have anyone."

"You're going for three weeks, and you're going with Cora," Derek said, Stiles' hair smelled of meadowsweet and hay and he felt so small in Derek's arms like he was made of sticks. Tara clearly needed to feed him more cakes for it was like there was nothing of him. "Then you'll be back and it will be like you never went away. I went away to school, and I was gone for much longer, I'd go away for months on end until I thought I'd go mad with missing everyone."

"Why did you stop?" Stiles had never learned that sometimes questions were inappropriate.

"I met you," Derek said and it wasn't a lie, he had met Stiles on the day that his parents were buried. When he was older Stiles might be able to put together the details but, for now, it was best that he didn't know. "That day I went swimming, that was when I stopped going to school." He had argued with Peter because he wanted to go back, he wanted to continue on until he was fourteen the way that the other boys did when they didn't mean to go to university. He had even known then it was an argument he wouldn't win, but then he came back from the swimming hole and all the folderol of the wake had been cleared away and he didn't ask again.

"Really?" Stiles so clearly needed the reassurance that he was loved, that this house was a home for him when before all he had had was Mama Evie and what she could give him, which wasn't much. 

"Really," Derek assured him. 

At sixteen Derek was rangy, he seemed to be all eyebrows and ears and he had, according to Tara, shot up six inches overnight. He was tall and awkward and tripped over his own damn feet because they were weird and his voice cracked if he got over excited and he still couldn't carry an entire sack of fleece over his shoulder the way the farm men did, he had to carry it in front of him with legs bowed but he knew he would grow up into that kind of frame, hard work on a farm did that and even Peter, who seemed to spend his life at his desk, was strong and muscular. 

He had gone from a handsome youth into a teenaged horror as parts of him grew at different rates to the rest and he was sure that he would outgrow it because young men did, but Stiles looked at him like he was remarkable, like he was the best person in the world and that was a lot to live up to. Derek liked feeling the way that Stiles made him feel and he wanted to make him happy to continue that feeling.

But Peter was also right, if they kept Stiles here with them in Malmsmead then Stiles would grow up and marry Derek and know nothing of life outside their tiny farm when Stiles was bright and brilliant and would do it because Derek was the first person ever to be kind to him except the woman he called Mama, and sending him away, even only as far as Bristol, would allow him to make that choice for himself, and then, if he still chose Derek, his choice would be worth more. He would be choosing Derek not just because he was there and he was kind, but because he wanted to spend his life with Derek and Derek was reaching the age where omega were soft and smelled sweet and Tara was washing his linens more often than those of anyone else in the house.

"You know how Peter has been teaching you to read," Derek started.

"Uhuh," Stiles agreed, excited now, "we've been reading Marcus Aurelius and he says he can't decide if it's inappropriate or perfectly appropriate or something I should know and understand or useless prognostication," Stiles sound the word out clearly having no idea what it was but Peter had said it so it might be important.

"Well," Derek cut in because given the opportunity Stiles could, and did, talk for days, "he doesn't have very many books here and very little time because he's doing so much, so you'll be going to Bristol so you can learn to read more books and history and science and maybe even politics, all things that don't matter much here because the lambs matter or the weather or other things, but we're very small and enclosed and you're so smart you should be allowed to learn those things. Peter is right about that," and it galled Derek to say it, "and the only way we can give you those things is by sending you to stay with Mrs Clark in Bristol, she has a younger sister who is a little younger than you," there was a year between them, "and so she can teach you and her sister and Cora all at the same time. She can take you shopping in Bristol and even Bath," that sounded so foreign to Derek who had gone to Cambridge to school and now it seemed so very far away. "And you can see so many things that we don't have in Malmsmead and then you can come back and tell us all about it."

He was making it seem like an exotic adventure and yet he genuinely didn't want Stiles to go. He liked Stiles. He made him laugh and he talked even when Derek didn't want to he filled the silence and Stiles was convinced they would grow up and be married, just like he had promised on the day that they met, and sometimes he told Derek about the ceremony because Stiles was too young to truly understand what came next except that he would never be sent away again.

"Is this because someone stole my necklace?" Stiles asked in a small voice.

"No," he started, "yes," he paused, "not really," he paused again, "well, sort of," Derek found himself unable to answer, "Peter sent us to Oare because he was scared that Gerard and Kate would try to snatch you from the house if they thought it was unguarded." Derek said, "and it reminded Peter that in trying to keep you safe from them we're denying you a lot. You can't go with Cora to the village school. You can't go and run amok with the other children, you can't even go to the pool for swimming." Derek was trying so hard to be grown up when he didn't want Stiles to go any more than Stiles wanted to go. "In Bristol you'll just be another omega child, you'll be taught manners that you don't have to use here like which fork to use and how to address a bishop rather than I like you hat can I try it on?" Derek ended it with teasing Stiles.

"Do bishops wear silly hats?" Stiles asked then, laying his head on Derek's shoulder.

"They do, they wear the silliest hats, but I don't think they'd let you try them on, well not unless you knew how to address one properly." 

When Peter heard the peals of laughter from Stiles' room he knew everything was going to be well with sending Stiles away where he would be safe and educated and treated as he deserved, even if Tara was right and that this was his home and he would not be forced out of it just to keep him from the Argents. She had put her hands on her hips, which she hardly ever did, and reminded Peter that it would be just one more thing that they had taken from him. She had been right which hadn't made it any less galling to be reminded of that fact.

Derek had blustered and glowered and threatened, as much as he could, but Tara had put a tea pot on Peter's desk and said all the things that Peter hadn't wanted to hear. It was Tara's truths, not Derek's wheedling that had seen Peter give ground on the argument. This was Stiles' home now, and he wouldn't be sent away from it or exiled, he would be given every advantage that Peter had to give but always with the knowledge that they were here for him and if he was truly unhappy in Bristol alternatives could be found.

It turned out to be a vain fear, when he got there Stiles quickly fell in love with Bristol and it's noise and the whole shelf of books that Clark could offer him to learn to read from, and at the end of that first week he sent a letter to Derek, his handwriting ugly and blocky and most of his words misspelled but still he had written it himself without help of which he was immensely proud and it was enough to reassure the three of them that they were doing the right thing, even if the house was now unbearably large and empty with both him and Cora gone.

 


	7. Chapter 7

The decision to send Stiles and Cora to school had a strange effect on the passage of time, it seemed to both stop and start at great speed depending on whether or not they were present in the Hale house. The three weeks where they were absent were slow drags between letters and the time they were home flew past so quickly that a week felt like minutes and in that time Cora grew into her womanhood, plumping out into adult curves as Stiles' growth lurched upwards in fits and starts made more obvious by the time they spent apart. Every time he returned home Tara would fake a wail and lament my little moppet is growing so tall for what Stiles had said that very first day that he and Derek had met was proving true - he was sprouting up like a little weed.

At thirteen Stiles lacked promise as a beauty, with round cheeks and a mouth that looked like he had spent the night before chewing upon it. His fine complexion and remarkable eyes were unremarkable in the shadow of his long dark hair, which he refused to cut and had Mrs. Clark dress daily. He was still a whirlwind of words and ideas but now those ideas were about the things he learned in books and he was clearly brilliant and not just smart. He was learning the same things as Cora then despite starting with an impediment being nearly ten before he learned to read, and Mrs. Clarke was also teaching him French so that he could be presented at court with Laura.

Laura had bloomed as Lady Beecham. She appeared every spring for at least a month, wearing fine gowns and laughing to herself as she blossomed over with joy, the end of the winter always before had represented the rise of tensions with the Argents as the improving weather allowed them to leave their valley but Laura's appearance always made them feel like a bright part of the year.

The spring after Stiles turned thirteen, knowing nothing more of his date of birth than it was in autumn Stiles had chosen All Hallow's Eve as the day to celebrate his birth, Laura was accompanied by her husband and a man that they had not seen before who stayed in the village inn, despite Tara offering to make up a room for him. He told them it would not be appropriate. Laura introduced him as Noah Stilinski, Lord Exeter and Sheriff of Beacon Hills. He was a tall man with a patrician bearing but a kindness to his blue eyes that spoke of a sorrow that was deeper than Derek could understand.

He wore fine clothes, finer even than Deucalion wore which were a rich man's idea of what gentlemen farmers wore and had fine sandy hair and his eyes seemed to take everything in, even details that others would deem insignificant, and he was quiet, listening more than talking, but he met with Peter often during his stay. Derek didn't think much of it, although sometimes Laura would wring her hands and sigh. In the pocket of her gown she carried something that she worried at constantly, but when Derek asked her about it she just changed the subject.

Derek questioned her because he didn't like that she would be upset, for she was his sister and he wished her to be happy, but she did not reveal what it was that bothered her so. Instead she was full of stories of London and court and how her French was improving for the King had spent the years after his exile in Paris so most of the court spoke French, and how they had a court wedding just last winter and that the bride had scandalously thrown her garter at Deucalion, as if she had not just married and he was not wed to Laura. It was well known that those men who caught the garter would be the next to marry.

Duke had taken it with good grace turning to Laura after he peeled it from his face and asked Laura if it was his color. He had kept it because it was well made with real pearls and hothouse flowers and he had gone to the jeweler to have the pearls turned into a bracelet for Laura. He was considerate like that and it made his intentions towards the pushy bride quite well. He loved his wife and had no interest in her proffered charms. 

Then the second time he cornered her to talk about it she said she was worried that she was not with child yet and that there were gossips in court that said she was barren and that she was cursed and what would Lord Beecham expect marrying a farmgirl. Derek, at nineteen, blushed clear to the roots of his hair until she finished about the comments about her birth when he got angry and it was only later that he knew she had distracted him.

Whatever was upsetting Laura so was connected to the Lord who had accompanied them and maintained those long conversations with Peter that caused him to press his lips together and give great lusty sighs through his nose like a tethered bull.

All Derek knew about him was his name and that he was painfully sad and even the Argents did not mess with him or his men. He attended church every Sunday, but sat at the back with his retainers, he spoke pleasantly with those who interacted with him but when Derek tried to Peter pulled him away with the idea that it would be something that they could deal with later.

Then one of the lambs was breech and he was needed and the farm pulled away his attention from the mystery. Peter knew what was happening and he was in control of it and that would have to do for Derek because those who knew were doing their best to keep him from it.

He was kept busy until the day that Stiles and Cora returned from Bristol, two weeks after the arrival of Laura and the strange sad nobleman. Stiles had new shoes that he didn't want to ruin by dropping into the mud, for the courtyard was a soup of it from the last storms, so he stayed in the wagon until Derek brought him his boots which everyone knew was an excuse to be alone with the alpha, because Stiles was still adamant that when he grew old enough he would marry Derek and an education and three years separation had not dimmed that ardor.

As soon as that ritual, and it had become so in the previous years, was done Tara came out wiping her hands to welcome Stiles for Cora was, according to Tara, already nestled in the chair by the fire with a cup of tea and her feet up to get warm after the journey, and Stiles ran to her like he had not seen her in years not just three weeks, chattering like a monkey, and Derek trailing along behind carrying his things.

Cora knew that the family had a tendency to treat Stiles like the baby and the favorite, if such a thing could be said and when she had complained that it was not fair, because for ten years she had been the baby, Peter reminded her that Stiles needed more love to make up for the years when he had none and only the cruelty of the Argents, shielded by a single woman who had died to keep him safe. The least they could give him was affection. Cora understood that but she still groused about it - usually to acquire extra to her spending money. Peter knew she was manipulating him for she adored Stiles as much as they did, if not more, spending that time in Bristol with him.

Within minutes of the two of them entering the house, it was suddenly a bustle with noise and Stiles' spaniel, returned with its master from Bristol also, being shouted at for getting under Tara's feet which it did deliberately to try and trip her into dropping things that it could quickly gobble up and cause Peter to chuckle for the dog was as impish as its owner. It was not badly behaved but it did like to push the boundaries of what it could achieve without getting punished and was just as eager to worm on laps for kisses as Stiles himself.

When Laura saw Stiles she ran over with a little cry and gave him a hug so firm that it almost lifted him from his feet. Stiles, who had not been privy to her strange behavior over the past two weeks thought nothing of it and just burrowed into her embrace.

It took three days before Peter summoned Stiles into his room for a private conversation that caused Laura to frown around the layette she was making - for the rumors that she was barren did not prevent her preparing for a babe that was yet to come. She would sit by the fire with the fine white linen spread over her skirts as she stitched, careful work making seams straight and even with almost invisible stitches. She had passed the small box that she kept in her pocket to her uncle for when Stiles left the room sobbing, running straight past Derek, he was clutching it in his hands.

Peter watched Stiles go with the obvious urge to follow and comfort him but instead he looked across at Derek and invited him in.

"It was only proper that Stiles hear it first," Peter said, turning and leaning on his desk with his back to Derek, "but I know that the secret has eaten away at Laura like a canker, for of all the discoveries I think she hates being the one to find it." He sighed, "Laura was enamored of Stiles' pendant, the amber locket that he wore when he came here and the Argents stole," Derek nodded for he did not know what he was expected to say if anything, "so she sketched it many times, and him wearing it, she had hoped to have a copy made but it was only last winter that she found a jeweler that she wished to make the piece." 

Peter gestured with his head to a chair indicating that Derek sit, and not knowing what was truly happening here he did sit. "The jeweler was the one who made her wedding ring, and she met with him to show him the sketches, he said that the piece looked familiar and asked permission to investigate it, for he thought that he knew who had crafted it." Peter paused again, resting on the desk with his hands either side of his hips and looking at the floor. "So he asked around, using the sketch that Laura had left with him, he found the man who had made the original."

"So she could have a second made?" Derek asked.

"Let me finish," Peter sighed again, "the original pendant was made for Klavdiya Gajos, of the Gajos of Poland, on the occasion of her marriage," Derek had no idea what he was talking about, the Argents had stolen the necklace so what did it matter that some foreign princess had owned it. "Her husband presented it to her and she married an English Lord to cement the restored king's place, they needed the Gajos money but that Klavdiya was adored by her husband, and within ten years of their marriage they were blessed with a son. Klavdiya was killed by bandits when she was traveling with her omega son, their carriage was found not twenty miles from here."

"I don't understand,"

Peter continued, "Lord Exeter is the one who commissioned the pendant," he said measuring out the words, "and he believes, based on Laura's watercolors of Stiles, and in particular his remarkable eyes, that he is the omega heir he believed was dead."

"But," Derek wanted to find all the reasons why it couldn't be Stiles, but the words were not there.

"Stiles, our Stiles, if he is Lord Exeter's heir is worth a fortune, more than enough to restore the Argents to the place they think should be theirs, they have pressed for Stiles for the years we have him and they have the necklace. If they force him into marriage with Kate Lord Exeter, desperate to meet his son, would give them everything."

"What can we do?" Derek asked filled with a burning need to burn them to the ground that he had not felt since they had murdered his parents seven years previous.

"Lord Exeter has been nothing but kind in waiting, he could have demanded we restore Stiles to him now, but he understands that we are his family, apart from Evelyn we are the only family that he has ever known." He rolled his shoulders as if he was holding some tension that was causing him pain.

"Doesn't he get to choose?" Derek asked, trying to find any way to stop this, to have Stiles remain with them in their small farm in Malmsmead.

"He is an omega," Peter said, "Lord Exeter's son and heir, the law would side with him. We are just recognized for our kindness but we have no claim on him."

"But if he wants to stay," Derek protested.

"Derek," Peter said finally, "there is nothing we can do. Stiles will go with his father, he is a Vidame, and a higher member of the court than even Deucalion. Laura will make sure he is happy, she will reassure us that he is well, but that is all, we are gentlemen and he is nobility, his father is the king's privy counselor, if he wanted Lord Exeter could have us killed for the presumption of taking in his son, it would be our word against his that it was the Argents, he does not have to be kind. We have to let him go." And Derek knew if Peter was saying it then it was because he had explored every option, every chance and found them all wanting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those who know Lorna Doone and are keeping their spoilers to themselves this cliffhanger is for you - because you know what is coming and you can laugh in evil glee with me  
> remember all of these fics have a happy ending, it's not the ending that matters - it's the journey and this journey has fun things in it - like cliffhangers and OMG! and do you really think the Argents are going to get away with it


	8. Chapter 8

Derek entertained the fantasy that Lord Exeter was not Stiles' father for the two days it took before Peter was happy to introduce them before Stiles would not react badly simply because he was in a foul temper. Lord Exeter had a quiet temper that he could bank like a fire and although he was not contented with Peter's decision although he did understand it. Stiles roamed with his dog, Marcus, at his heels and the farm labourers watching him, not in case lord Exeter might snatch him but instead the Argents, just in case, although they had shown no interest in him for the past three years. He scowled and wrote long letters to Miss Clark and when Derek was working, helping with the washing of the sheep before they were sheared- which meant taking them down to the creek and walking them down, one by one and washing them with soap until they resembled bedraggled cream clouds instead of angry storms full of muck and branches.

Stiles, who at thirteen was spidery thin and whose limbs resembled nothing more than the fallen branches of the alder trees in the gardens of the abandoned manor outside Malmsmead, giving the impression that if you pressed too hard they would shatter like those fallen branches did. He wore beta fashions but insisted on keeping his hair long, and now it reached down to his thighs, fine as angel breath and with volume that was the sorrow of Tara's heart, and although in Bristol he had a maid who could dress it in the styles that were popular for omega, in Malmsmead he wore it in a braided crown with a tail that snaked down his back would sit on the rocks by the creek complaining about it. He seemed to perpetually have an outbreak of spots around his chin that Tara gave him compresses of witch hazel for, and he had a tendency to suck on the amber cross that Peter had bought him to replace the locket, for he claimed he felt naked without it, and it meant he almost always had something drawing attention to his mouth, which had taken on a sinful colour. At nineteen Derek was aware that Stiles was going to be a beauty and there were flashes of it even then in the tilt of his head; the line of his neck or the press of fingertips against his lips where he had bitten them sore.

Derek had already heard a few crude jokes about the boy, and more than once had returned from one of the inns with bloodied knuckles.

Everything had been settled and calm and people knew that insults to Stiles would be met with Derek's fists and then Lord Exeter had come to spoil it, and worse, Derek could not even blame him for he loved Stiles and if he loved Stiles how much did the man who might be his father have missed him. Lord Exeter had lost so much and it was through his absence that Derek had met Stiles and there was a tragedy there too. If Lord Exeter's wife had not been murdered then Derek would never have met Stiles and if Laura had not liked the pendant that Lord Exeter had given his wife then Derek would have been able to keep him forever, but he had always suspected that Stiles was too good for him. He was certainly too good for Malmsmead and the war with the Argents.

Derek insisted that he accompany Peter and Stiles to the inn where Lord Exeter was staying. Lord Exeter did not seem offended by the crude lodgings or the lack of luxury and when Derek asked his uncle about it he was told that Lord Exeter had been a soldier and was not like other Lords, and years of Lord Beecham staying there whilst he waited for Laura to come of age meant that the inn had at least fresh plaster on the walls and a bed worth sleeping in.

Lord Exeter had taken over the saloon, which had previously been the innkeeper's private room, and when Derek saw him, that one moment before they made themselves known, he looked distant. When they came in and before Peter introduced them he stood up, brushing the imaginary dust from his breeches and looked around like he was meeting the king, making surer that everything was to the best standard that he could make it.

Lord Exeter was nervous to meet Stiles, but then he schooled himself back to what Derek expected to be a noble nonchalance but instead was a quiet observation. He took in every detail and ignoring his man, Harris, stood at the fireplace, he gestured that they sit, Derrek included.

Derek was not observant the same way that his uncle was, but he noticed things about Lord Exeter.

He saw the way that Lord Exeter's facade cracked for a just a moment on seeing Stiles, how it looked like he might stumble back to the couch, but then it was gone, as he took in more details, details that Derek mirrored in his observance of Lord Exeter.

At first glance, it was not easy to say Lord Exeter and Stiles were father and son, for they did not immediately look alike, but as Derek watched more and more of the similarities made themselves apparent. They shared the same line of jaw and spread of shoulders. They had the same hands, and even their hairlines were the same.

"You look just like her," Lord Exeter said in lieu of introduction, "good God, you are the image of my Klavdiya."

Stiles blinked and licked at his lips, as if there was a taste there that he could not quite reach, "I," he started.

"As I explained," Peter said, he was quick to step in and fill in the blanks, "his earliest memories are of Evelyn Argent, he only came to live with us three years ago."

Lord Exeter nodded very slightly, blinking as he did. He was off balance and didn't seem to know what to do or say. He wanted to do something, Derek could tell, but didn't know what he should do, or what he could do.

Said Mr Harris, who was a tall thin man with spectacles, "Of course we still must investigate the boy's claim."

As Peter nodded assent Lord Exeter stood, his knees banging against the tea table and the service set there so it clinked, "Look at him, man," he exclaimed, "he couldn't look more like Klavdiya if he was her, this is my son."

The sudden outburst of passion surprised everyone, Stiles most especially for he leaned back towards Derek. "I do not know you, sir," Stiles said, "if you wished for some moment where we might recognise each other and there would be tears you must be disappointed for you are a stranger to me."

"I spent the last twelve years mourning you," Lord Exeter said, "just seeing you," he went quiet. "I am not good with words," he continued, "I relied on Klavdiya to do most of my talking for me,"

"Then he is like her in that," Peter said, trying to smooth the situation, "for usually, Stiles is not one to be silent, my nephew is more prone to quiet, they match each other well in that."

"Mieczyslaw," Lord Exeter said in a firm voice, talking over Peter.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Peter was not used to being talked over and it was hard to tell if it was from annoyance or that he had misheard.

"Mieczyslaw," Lord Exeter repeated, "his name is Mieczyslaw. Klavdiya asked that he have her father's name and I saw no reason why not when she asked me I would have pulled down the moon for her."

"Of course we want him to start using his proper name when he returns to society and London," Harris interjected, "take him past this entire vile episode of his life, like living with bandits."

"My name is Stiles," Stiles had his hands fisted at his sides, "I've always been Stiles, my Mama Evie called me Stiles and she was my mama, not this Klavdiya woman, I don't remember her or know her and I won't have you say anything bad against her."

"No one is saying anything about your Mama Evie," Derek said taking Stiles' hand in his own, "we know she was good to you, this man knows nothing." Derek glared at Mr Harris.

"I need some air," Stiles said, standing up, "Derek will you come with me?" And Derek, still holding him by the hand, did.

There was a stiff spring wind that whipped through the open streets of Malmsmead, pulling up the smell of rowan flowers and mud, fresh whitewash and manure. Stiles walked over to the tethering post and kicked sullenly at a mattock of soil, disturbing the horses lashed there, and then he decided that it would be better to soothe the beast with pats although he himself was not so easily placated. He was angry and it showed in every line of his frame. "I hate this," Stiles said, "he can't just."

Derek cut him off. "Yes, he can," he said sullenly, "but I hate it too."

"He can't just say I look like her and that be enough for me to run into his arms like I was Jonas' daughter," Jonas was one of the farm labourers who lived with his mother following the death of his wife, he had been a sailor and so he left for more than a few hours the child would rush him with kisses because she had been terrified that she had lost him.

"No one is expecting you to," Derek said and he hated that he had to be the voice of reason in this, "you have time to get to know each other."

"I could be anyone," Stiles said, "if I wasn't his then I could stay here, with you."

Derek ran the pad of his thumb over the curve of his cheekbone before cupping his face in the bowl of his palm, "you told me when we met that you have to keep your word or people will short you, did you mean it?" Stiles had no words so he nodded, his lips were thinned and he kept swallowing as if he might cry. "So we keep our word, that when we're all grown we'll get married, and then you can stay here. It's no different than going to stay with Mrs Clark." Derek knew it was a lie even as he said it, but Stiles needed to hear it. "It will just be a little longer, and Laura is in London, you won't be alone."

"How do we know?" Stiles protested. "How do we know I look just like her?"

"Because I can see all the ways you look like him," Derek said the words although it broke his heart to do it. Stiles would leave with Lord Exeter, he would have a life Derek could never give him. He would be able to visit places like Versailles. He would mingle with princes and bishops, and when he asked if they had silly hats they would laugh politely afraid to be cast out of his circle. He would have alphas from all over the world dance attendance on his beauty. 

He would soon forget an alpha in Exmoor who taught him how to swim and teased him about the hedge mice living in his hair. He had always been destined for better things than a gentleman farmer in Malmsmead.

Yet more than anything Derek wanted to take Stiles away, far away from the man in the inn who was both his father and made him so sad.

His mother had said that being the alpha meant that sometimes you had to do things that were best for people even when it broke your heart, and Derek's heart was breaking, he was surprised that it did not sound like ice underfoot as it did, but what was best for Stiles was leaving with his father.

He could lie to do that.

\---

"A word," Peter said, "in your ear, if you can pardon the presumption," they were drinking tea, the finest that the innkeeper had to offer, from earthenware cups that Lord Exeter would probably consider too rough to use as filters in his planters.

"I owe you more than that," he replied, "you offered my son a kindness that many others would have refused him."

"He will have questions, some we can predict," Peter dropped a sugar cube into his tea with a plink noise, then stirrred it slowly, "a thousand thoughts careen through his head at any time, some will be remarkable and you'll wonder how he got there and why you never saw it like that yourself," Lord Exeter nodded. "He is going to ask about the Argents, and why no one has interfered, why the king hasn't acted if he was murdered on the roads here."

"The king is old," Lord Exeter said bluntly, "and he has no heir. So most of parliament has been, for the past few years, people being afraid to act in case the new king won't support their star, even if Charles himself would." Lord Exeter scrubbed his hand through his hair before he continued in a gesture that was exactly like Stiles. "There are two candidates, his brother is the legal heir but there is a bastard, or someone who claims it well enough to have followers, chancers mostly, second sons and the like, but there will be war. The longer Charles lives the worse it becomes, so imagine now if I took my two hundred and fifty men and tried to scour Devon looking for them, they'd run to every bolt hole and cave and village, just like they did twelve years ago, and if the king dies I'd have to immediately withdraw them to serve my new master and might lose everything if he thought that I was dawdling to see who would rise victorious, at which point my responsibility for those who work for me is undone." He sighed, again sounding exactly like Stiles. "I did try, twelve years ago, I thought he was dead with his mother, I tried to burn them out of every bolthole, at best I thinned the herd."

"You do not have to excuse yourself to me," Peter said, "I was absent when they murdered my sister and her husband, I know what it's like to try and fail to rout them, it is easier to get rid of ants in a kitchen." Lord Exeter gave a chuff of laughter. "The other presumption I will beg of you," Peter continued, "your man, Harris, was he set to inherit? For he seems..." Peter left it open.

"Harris is a petty functionary who wishes to be nobility," Exeter said, "he is nothing to be concerned over. "I have him well in hand."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the novel Lorna's parents were both dead and she went to stay with a Lord as his ward, she had no choice in the matter and neither did the Ridds, I had to soften that a bit  
> but look a strand of wild plot appears


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles' departure left a sort of shroud over the Hale farm, even Cora, who had bickered with him, felt his lack. Suddenly it was like the bottom had been taken from their world, and even though he had been absent for weeks at a time. The knowledge that he would not return was like a funereal wind blowing through the house.

He had even taken his dog.

Derek tried to bury himself in work but it was the mid-summer and that meant that most of the work for the farm was in the interim where the hay was still growing and the sheep that were being sold had already gone. It had previously been his favourite time of the year because it was when he got to spend the most time with Stiles, doing things like swimming, and tree climbing and just walking all the farm's dogs around their borders ostensibly looking for signs of Argent aggression but mostly just talking about everything that came into their heads.

Without his usual associate Derek became quiet and surly and the idea that with Stiles whisked away by a lord from London that Derek was available for marriage and Truthful had recently been made a widow by passing sickness, and she and her small son were expected to move into the Hale house by winter for Truthful was the loveliest woman in the village.

At twelve when Truthful was sixteen Derek would have been giddy at the idea of marrying Truthful, for she had long flaxen hair and eyes like limpid pools and almost all of the labourers had started to write bad poetry about her, and the swing of her hips, but at nineteen he had no interest in her. Conversation with her in the inn was pleasant enough when she brought him cups of small beer. She worked there with her parents with her toddler son on a sling on her hip, usually with something in his hands that he chewed on.

Derek didn't even notice that her figure had softened with motherhood and had made her even more desirable among the men of Devon than before.

At first, Stiles wrote every week and Derek lived for his letters, reading them out, and then saving them for Cora to read when she returned from Bristol. At fourteen she stood on the precipice of a great beauty, with an oval face, black almond-shaped eyes framed with thick lashes and a bee-stung mouth and already Peter was getting proposals of marriage for her from the dandies of Bristol. Peter had promised both her and Cora that he would not marry them against her will, Laura had come to know and love Deucalion before they were married and she would have the same courtesies as her sister, even if he couldn't guarantee that she would marry as well.

As summer fell into to fall and the harvest was to be brought in Stiles' letters became a little less frequent, one every two weeks instead of once a week. Yet Derek still cherished each one, keeping them in a small cedar box and only handling them after he had bathed and washed his hands thoroughly for fear of covering them in sheep muck.

Peter had to go to York for some work to do with his legal practise and as he gave more and more of the farm's running to Derek Peter felt comfortable going, Cora was in Bristol and he should be no more than a month, but he had left provisions in place just in case the Argents acted. They had been unusually quiet these past two years and Peter suspected that Kate was "cleaning house" removing those who did not support her and her father leading the family. Peter had heard that Kate's brother, Christopher, had taken his beta wife and daughter and moved away from Devon to escape his family but Derek didn't know the truth of it.

Peter returned as the October winds picked up and Stiles would have turned fourteen in the house of his father. Accompanying his letter was a small coffer of comfits as an offering for Tara's all souls table, with one of tea and one of spices from his father as a gift for his birthday. For Derek's birthday, he received a book. Peter did not return alone, for accompanying him was a street urchin who looked like he had not had a solid meal in several years with large blue eyes that looked rather similar to Peter's own. He even had the thick Hale brows that were Cora's lament. He could not have been more than eight or nine.

"This is William," Peter said, "I found him sleeping in a doorway, we have the room, we could use another hand around the farm, I've been calling him Liam," and that was that. Derek did comment that when he expected Peter to return with trinkets from York he had not expected it to be a child, but Peter just sighed and said "the house is too empty."

Peter neither claimed the boy as his own or showed him any real favouritism. As soon as Tara had fed him to her satisfaction, bathed and clothed him she put him to sleep in Stiles' bed, wringing her hands and saying "at least this way it'll get some use."

By Christmas, when the yule log burned in the fireplace filling the room with the smell of cherry smoke and the holly that decorated the mantle Stiles' letters had become monthly. Gifts arrived for Christmas but Peter was out of sorts. He said that the news that he was receiving from London meant that the king's health was failing. In his letter, Stiles said that he and his father would be travelling to Versailles because his father feared there would be war and he wanted Stiles out of it. It would also allow Stiles to be presented to a court where he could make the most advantageous marriage and how eager he was to see France.

Of his promise to marry Derek when they were of age he made no mention.

The king died in February leaving the crown to his brother but his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth started a rebellion believing that the crown should be his and Lord Exeter's prediction came true, war came and Derek, as a gentleman farmer, was called up to serve his king. He did so glad that Stiles would be in Paris, far from the fighting.

Before he left he had the pleasure, if it could be called such, of hearing Gerard Argent in the town square, drunk as a lord, preaching his support for Monmouth who would make them all lords, who would take the duchies and lordships wasteful Charles had given to his mistresses and bastards and give them to the good and honorable men of England. He had locked eyes with Derek, confident in his victory before tipping his hat to acknowledge him and with a grin he turned back to his men. Surrounded as he was by Argent thugs there was nothing that Derek could do, even if he did send for the magistrate.

Leaving Peter in charge of the farm, with Liam trailing behind him like a surly shadow, Derek went to war on behalf of the king.

The war lasted four months, ending at Sedgmemoor in July on a blazing hot day, and Derek was glad to hear the cannons go quiet and the horns signal. He returned to his tent and peeled off his coat, with his rifle and bayonet laid down beside him when a lord that he did not recognise approached him and his three men. Deucalion had sent him a war dog to watch his back which had the rather unusual name Io. He had left Malmsmead with six men but only three remained, them and Io who slept in his bunk with him at night. "Where you from, lad?" The man had a bright red coat that was so clean it was clear that he had not been involved in the fighting. With the sun blazing down the field at Sedgemoor had been baked hard and cracked, so the marching and horses and dogs had turned it into a sea of dust that covered them all in a light brown film. This man showed no sign of it.

"Hale," Derek said giving his name, "from Malmsmead." He was not sure he cared for being called lad at the age of twenty.

"Arrest him," the foppish lord said, "gather up his men and his things, we leave for London in the morning."

Derek raised his hands, the mastiff who had been laid beside the barrel of water he had used to wash springing to its feet to defend its master, as had the three labourers who had served with him. "I think you are mistaken, my lord."

The lord pulled a kerchief thick with lace from a pocket and held it to his nose like he smelled something distasteful, his soldier stepped forward and with a metal studded glove backhanded Derek hard enough he was forced to step back. "We do not speak to traitors," the lord said. He was wearing a gold silk sash and a thick curled wig that he must have thought made him look like the king. His jabot was immaculate white as if it had been freshly bleached.

"My lord," Derek protested through a mouth full of blood. "You are mistaken, I have served the true King, James, faithfully and honestly on this field."

The man at arms backhanded him again, almost knocking Derek from his feet, the dog beside him snapping and growling but was too well trained to attack without his master's order. "Take him, and kill the dog,"

"Wait!" Derek protested, "I am a gentleman and bondsman to Lord Deucalion Beecham," at that name the man at arms paused with his hand on his sword hilt, "he gave me the dog, and he will be unhappy to learn that you are treating me thus."

The lord made a noise of discontent into his kerchief as if he found the entire thing to smell bad.

"My lord, we could," the man at arms offered, he knew Lord Beecham by reputation and did not want to be the one to be punished for following this Lordling's orders, because it was clear who would be blamed.

"Lord Beecham is in London," the fop lord said, "we are taking him to London now, I hardly see why this is a problem, Hastings."

"Because Lord Beecham is the king's hatchet," the man at arms said, "and he ranks higher than you and it'll be my head on the block."

"And?" the lord raised a manicured eyebrow. "If I deliver Lord Beecham's man as a traitor I shall be feted in London."

"Brother in law," Derek corrected, with his teeth pink from blood.

"Pardon," the lordling said with disdain.

"I am Lord Beecham's brother in law, he is married to my sister," the lord did not seem to react, flipping out the black curls of his wig over his shoulder. The man at arms looked like he might soil himself.

"Even better," the lord said, "my father will be pleased if Lord Beecham is removed from his place at the king's ear, and if his brother in law is proven a traitor. Why Lord Exeter himself will be brought so low he shall gift me his little whore of a brat."

Derek knew that striking the lord was a bad idea, especially one that was arresting him for treason but his fist flew out of its own accord knocking the lord hard on his ass. "You don't talk about him like that," he roared levelling blows at the man.

As he was dragged away in chains, Io yelping and barking against the chain that they fixed to her collar, he told his men to send word to his uncle and to Lord Beecham that he had been arrested on false charges but he knew why. So many men from Malmsmead had fought for the pretender - and all of them with the surname Argent.


	10. Chapter 10

Assured of his innocence in the charge of treason Derek accompanied the soldiers who were to take him to London for trial. He was not so sure in regards to the blows that he had exchanged with the lordling. The fop had sat holding a lace handkerchief to his nose in front of the commander demanding that Derek was executed as both a traitor and a brute who had bloodied his nose and split his lip like a common ruffian in a tavern brawl.

Their commander, a gruff man who had reached the position by talent and not nepotism, had been still wearing a mud-splattered breastplate when the two of them, with Io trailing behind them with her tail between her legs trying to make herself seem small, were escorted into his tent. The commander was a man in his mid-forties who looked exhausted, and tiredness had added ten years to him. He removed his helmet and scratched his hands through his hair before he took a lusty swallow of the cold tea that was on his campaign table amidst the maps. The lordling's man, a man even more obsequious than Derek had suspected possible, brought his master a campaign chair for the lordling to sit in.

"You," he looked at Derek, "Hale, you stand accused of treason by several men from your area, apparently you are a double agent," he lifted several letters and scanned through them, "do you have a grudge against these Argent men?"

"They killed my parents, sir," Derek said, "and I, through Christian kindness, thwarted their plans to acquire land before they allied themselves with the Bastard." Derek remained stood with his hand on Io's broad head to reassure the dog more than himself.

"I thought as much," the commander put his papers down, "you acquitted yourself well on the field and those who served with you have nothing but kind words for you and your hound," Derek nearly told Io to listen how he told her that she was a good girl but stopped himself because the setting was not quite appropriate. "you will have to travel to London to stand trial, which will be a formality, but with so many of these accusations there will be time before you are set free. It seems that half of England is taking this as a time to settle old grudges."

"But he struck me," the fop protested through his handkerchief in a ripple of lace.

"And I have wanted to these past four months," the commander said, "it is only a surprise that someone beat me to it, so what did you do that a gentleman of impeccable reputation felt obliged to knock you down?" The commander was clearly not in the mood for such nonsense.

"He did not wish to be arrested, he resisted," the fop said with such disdain that any would question him at all. He did not care for the commander and clearly felt that he should outrank him, and had he the war would have been won much sooner.

"I told him that there was some mistake," Derek said, "that I was here under the purview of Lord Beecham who is my brother in law, he referred to my sister with a term I would not apply to a ewe and then was so delighted at the idea that Lord Beecham might be ruined by the accusation that he might be given Lord Exeter's vidame whom he also referred to in the basest language. He clearly did not know that Lord Exeter's vidame was raised by my family after he was liberated from the same family whom I think accused me. I reacted to the insult to both my sister and the child raised as my brother, I had already been struck several times by his man."

"You," the commander said pointing at the fop, "report to Marsh to have your mouth washed out with salt water and soap for speaking so against your betters. you are lucky you only got a blacked eye and split lip, I would have beaten you half to death for speaking so against my siblings, lord or not."

The fop looked more wounded by the idea that he might be punished than he had by the beating complaining that his . The commander sat down heavily before he sighed watching the flop leave the tent muttering about how his mother would hear about this, "I have wanted to split the brat's lip since he got here," he offered Derek a cup of the cold tea but Derek refused him politely. "It was only a matter of time before someone laid him out on his ass, I don't know whether to scold you for fighting or thank you for doing it, but make no mistake had you done it just one week ago I would have had your back striped for fighting in that ranks, do you understand me?" Derek assured him that he did. "I cannot allow you to go to London on your own without guard, because even if I trust you it would set a precedent and half of the true traitors against the new king would take it as licence to abscond. Nevertheless I do understand it might be at least a year before you stand trial, and you will do so with my recommendation on how you behaved, you might have to spend that time in the Tower or Newgate," he turned back to his table, "my men will escort you back to your tent where you can gather your things, tonight you shall bed down where you can be watched, and tomorrow at dawn you can leave for London with those others who stand accused."

"Commander," Derek said with a bow of the head, "I have but one question, my hound, Io, has served faithfully beside me and cannot accompany me to London, what shall happen to her?"

The commander leaned heavily against his campaign table and considered it. "She is a fine soldier, aye," he agreed, "a gift from Lord Beecham to keep you safe, it's well known he's enamored of his wife and if she's as fair as you I can see why," Derek blushed under the grime and scruff he was covered in, "Lord Beecham is currently in London, she can accompany you in the wagon and be transferred to his care there, she has earned the same commendations as you."

"Lord Flitwick," Derek said, naming the fop, "told his man to kill her where she stood."

"Lord Flitwick is not powerful in and of himself," the commander said, "but his mother holds power in court, she serves on the privy council with Lord Exeter, but Lord Exeter has expressed that he has no love for the fop, if it will help her place in court Lord Flitwick's mother will destroy you, but she won't do it just because you struck the boy. She plays a long game and she is a dangerous enemy to have, Lord Beecham might stand at your side but he is no match for her." Derek thanked the man for his advice and his kindness before he accompanied the guards back to his tent to pack up his belongings, such as they were.

\---

Due to the huge number of accusations of supporting the Bastard and the knowledge that it would take several months, at least, to process the trail even with Deucalion, Lord Beecham, doing his best to hurry up the process the court made the decision that Derek could stay in his brother-in-law's custody because everyone knew that Lord Beecham wasn't a traitor so, after a single night in Newgate prison, Derek was moved to Deucalion's country home in Essex. He was under strict instructions as to what he could and could not do, he was not allowed to roam the gardens, unless accompanied by at least one guard, and was certainly not allowed to go riding. He could not go into the city but there was no restriction on his correspondence on the condition that any letter that he wrote or received was first read by Deucalion and then kept for the court to read later as part of his testimony. Deucalion didn't believe for an instant that Derek was a traitor and let him write and read his mail in peace.

Going out of his mind with boredom Derek took to joining the gardeners who managed the estate in their honest labours for he was a gentleman farmer and understood that the wellbeing of the farm was curated by the hard work of the owner.

November was collapsing into December and the Christmas chill when Lord Exeter returned from France with his son accompanying him. From the windows of the long hall Derek saw his carriage pull up and as much as he wanted to be angry at how Stiles had abandoned him he could not be. They had been apart for nearly two years and the boy of thirteen had become a beauty at the cusp of sixteen He still nearly fell out of the carriage and had what looked to be, from what Derek could see at the window, a pastry in his hand, and his father looked on indulgently as Stiles bounced back and forth between the carriage and the door. Stiles had become tall and lithe, where before he had always been too slim, with his hair caught up under a red felt hat that matched his velvet coat, and the lace over his shoulders was a brilliant white and he, scandalously, had bright red clocks on his stockings visible to everyone over his black leather shoes.

Derek, who had grown up with two sisters, knew about clocks, the woven and brightly coloured patterns used to disguise the seams of a woman's stockings under her skirts, and the very idea of a girl's clocks were enough to drive some alphas to mania with lust, and Stiles' were on display for anyone to see. Derek wanted to wrap him up in his heaviest cloak so that no one would ever have that kind of thought about him.

Yet he had spent the last year in Versailles, learning about court amongst the French, and had come back sophisticated and fashionable but still his limbs were too long for him and Marcus, his spaniel, was yipping and bouncing at his heels as excitable as his master and Derek had had so many thoughts of how he would react to seeing Stiles again, he had not known for surer if he ever would, but he wanted to emulate Io's casual disdain, where she sat beside him looking out of the window because her master was looking out of the window.

Laura, seven months pregnant and complaining constantly that she was puffy with it, as if she had not spent the last five years desiring this morre than anything else in the entire world, ran down the steps to pull Stiles into an embrace and even from the window of the long hall Derek could hear them squealing at each other, that she was so big, and he had gotten so tall.

It seemed that even after a few years absence they remained family.


	11. Chapter 11

Derek did not run down the stairs, even if he wanted to, to see Stiles, but Io, aware of her master's excitement did. Io loved people, which was unusual for a dog bred and trained for battle, and she had no greater joy than lying in front of the fire with a full belly surrounded by as many people as could fit in the room, and even then she would occasionally raise her head and check that everyone was present. The arrival of new people that had been approved by her master meant that there were new people whose purpose in life was to fuss her and let her guard them.

She stood nearly as tall as Lord Exeter's hip and as broad as him, nearly one hundred and fifty pounds of war dog, and Lord Exeter got down on his haunches to rub her cheeks and tell her what a lovely boy, no girl, I'm sorry, that she was.

Stiles was no more scared of her than his father, and they were effusive in their praise of her, and how she had done such a good job in keeping her master safe and how she was such a good girl, even if her master never wrote.

Their indulgence of Io allowed an ease between them and Derek when he came down the stairs. Up close Stiles was even more lovely than he had been through the window. He wore a long red velvet coat, decorously covered with a white lace trimmed collar, and a red and white silk doublet, with pantalons that were laced at the knees, the contrast of white and red suited him and made his skin look even richer. He had been dressed to suit his complexion and it was clear that no expense had been spared in making him look as lovely as he did. It was no wonder the lordling that Derek had struck had coveted him.

In contrast to his finery, Derek felt very rough and almost shabby. Under house arrest as he was with Deucalion Derek had the chance to groom himself correctly, and unable to work the farm, as he had all of his life, his skin was softer than it had been, his beard was oiled and his hair cut neatly. His clothes were brushed clean and his white linens were bleached and stiff.

His fine wool coat and doublet were nowhere near as fine as those worn by Lord Exeter and his son, and he felt diminished in their presence in a way that he had never before.

"You are eager to greet me for someone who never wrote," Stiles said with his hands on his hips. He was clearly angry and he was tapping the toe of his black leather shoes.

"I did write," Derek protested, "at least once a week, sometimes twice, it was you that never wrote to me."

"I had so many things to tell you, of course, I wrote to you," Stiles answered, he still retained the same frenetic energy like he might at any moment burst into action or fall flat on his face. "I wrote to you all of the time, you were the one who didn't write to me."

Lord Exeter snorted out a laugh at the two of them, "at least let us settle in front of the fire, boys," he said, "the journey from London was long and cold, a comfortable chair, a hot fire and a cold cup of ale will make this a lot less fractious." Lord Exeter was known as a temperate man, who was little given to anger. Two kings now sought his counsel and Derek was humble enough and scared enough of the man who was Stiles' father because he was his father, to listen when he spoke.

They went into the parlour, which was Laura's pride and joy, and took seats in front of the fire, Stiles sitting next to Lord Exeter. "I have kept all of my letters," Stiles said, "even those I didn't open from court fops who sought to woo me if you had written to me I would have your letters."

"But you were the one who stopped writing to me, I wrote to you regardless."

Lord Exeter, accepting a mug of ale and raising his feet upon a small stool with a grunt of delight, shook his head, "you both claim that you wrote, and yet neither of you received the letters," he said it calmly, "it seems that there might be an easy answer here."

"Pater?" Stiles asked as if he had not considered such a thing, "could someone be intercepting our letters, perhaps someone does not want us to converse." Stiles remained as expressive as ever, it was a delight to watch every emotion that he had spread across his face. It was also clear that he had not been repressed in his brilliance and that his father was willing to make it clear that Stiles was brilliant and that had been something that Derek had not even known that he had feared might happen. In the two years that Stiles had been with his father, it was apparent that they had grown very close indeed. "Pater," he said using a very old-fashioned term of endearment, "who would do such, they are only letters and we are not writing of state secrets?"

"Then before we jump to conclusions, let us ask who has access and who would benefit and why," Lord Exeter wanted to make sure that even the accusation was well founded but Derek suspected he already had a culprit in mind. He wanted Stiles to measure every option and decide for himself.

"This many letters would not go astray in the post," Stiles said, weighing up the options, "so it's likely that the letters were intercepted by someone with access to either of us, with Derek it would be Peter and Peter has no reason to stop us talking, so it wouldn't be him," he crossed him off, "even if he read them first if he had a problem with it he would tell us both direct, and I have received letters from both Peter and Cora, and even messages from Tara, so I know it is not Peter." He leaned forward to take a small tart from a platter that had been put on the shelf of the inglenook where he was sat. He took a bite and chewed on it thinking. "So whoever took the letters was on my side, I give my letters to Emily and she delivers them, but Emily has never met Derek so I can't imagine that she would object, and if she wanted Derek for herself she would write to him, surely, and she tells me everything so I know it's not Emily."

He took a second bite chewing slowly, with his mouth open - that hadn't changed for all of his finery, "Emily gives the letters to Harris for franking, and it's Harris who takes the letters from the delivery man, so it makes most sense that it would be Harris who was selecting whose letters I receive, and if he is reading my mail and selecting which letters are sent it would also explain why people like Lord Flitwick insist on writing to me when I have written to them asking that they stop. I had thought him just an arrogant ass but if he didn't receive that letter," he left it open. "But, Pater, why would Harris do such, I have no dealings with him."

"Harris has opinions on what is proper behaviour for a lord, and what is proper for rank, Lord Flitwick is of a similar rank so clearly he thinks that the two of you should be acquainted even though Flitwick is an ass and I am surprised he continued to write to you after you put him on _his_ ass."

Derek couldn't help the snort of laughter. "We are paired in that for I also laid him on his ass."

Stiles hooted with laughter, "he is such an ass, you must tell me all about it, Pater, will you deal with Harris? I do not wish him to handle my mail any longer, it is not his place to decide that which is appropriate for me, you offered me the hire of my own secretary, before, did you not?" Lord Exeter agreed that he had made that offer, "then I shall have one, God himself knows how much correspondence I receive, I keep it all for it might be useful, but most of it is trinkets to try and buy my affection when all I want to know is what is happening in Malmsmead to my family."

Io raised her head and watched Stiles gesture with the last bite of his tart still held in his hand, her head following it back and forth, and Stiles' spaniel, Marcus, copying the motion as well, both of them laid on the floor before the fire. Laura came in with a fresh jug of ale and sat down next to Derek with a grunt, and her hand on her stomach. "You are blooming," Stiles said, "and you shall be a new mother by the new year, you look so well and so happy, and I am almost jealous, but I understand pregnancy is hard and so I am not eager to join you."

"From your lips to God's ears," Lord Exeter muttered, "I am far too young to be a grandfather, I am told that nothing ages you than when your baby has babies, I know that we had planned to spend the season with you but if Stiles decides that he wishes to be a mother we shall have to return to London just to protect his virtue. I am quite sure that rather than become with child he might snatch one from a local midwife."

Stiles acted scandalised, "Pater," he protested, "it shall be easier to share Laura's babe," he said, "and the opposite might be true, I just want it to be easier than Emily's beauty regimen, for I despise spending at least an hour each day just polishing and powdering my skin. Laura's skin looks as clear as glass, she doesn't have any pimples."

"I wash my face with witch hazel, rubbing it down with a sea sponge and linen," Laura said, "then I apply violet cream before I retire, my husband maintains that it is why it took so long to get pregnant for he had to wait until it was absorbed and by then he was asleep."

"Laura!" Derek protested, "I don't need to hear about that. I am quite sure that this babe was the subject of immaculate conception and that the church needs to hear about it."

"Oh the church gets the details but my own brother cannot, I do think, Derek, that there is something wrong with your priorities," she was smiling impishly, "when you marry you shall have to perform before the church for otherwise, people will believe that you, as the uncle of the new child of immaculate conception, will follow a life of celibacy despite marriage."

Lord Exeter was chuckling watching them, "I can see why you are so fond of them, child," he almost whispered to his son, "they are delightful and this is what it is like to have a family, I am glad that you grew up among them. Rest assured, son, Harris will be dealt with for his attempts to deny you this."


	12. Chapter 12

Derek had not meant to disturb Stiles at his evening toilet, so when he was invited in to find Stiles sat at his dressing table brushing out his hair in front of a small peer glass Derek did not know where to look.

Stiles just smiled at him brightly and held out the comb for Derek to take over.

Seeing Derek's reticence he rolled his eyes, "you have been combing my hair since we were children, what has changed?" And although Derek had many reasons why he could voice none of them.

Stiles' hair was a thing of beauty, dark and sleek and hanging almost clear to the floor. He kept it braided up neatly or caught in a knot at the base of his neck, one that was too small for the amount of hair it contained, even though it was unfashionable for male omega to wear their hair long, he kept it that length for his own reasons. It had the power to render Derek speechless, though it was not clear that Stiles knew that.

Stiles had removed his red coat and vest. They were the same as those which were favoured at court but much more embellished, even for court standards, with gold thread and embroidery. His buttons were brass beads set with the family crest and the dark red of his low slung velvet pantalons was perfect for his skin and were scandalously low slung in Derek's opinion. He had kicked off his shoes and his stockings with their scandalous clocks were on full display.

Derek took the comb and started to brush Stiles' hair. "We haven't done this since I left," Stiles said, for it was always Stiles who was first to talk. "No, since I left for Bristol for lessons, or maybe before, Tara always took such care of my hair, I have a maid, but I don't like her touching my hair. She says I'll attract more alphas if I cut it to my shoulders and curl it."

"Then those alphas are idiots," Derek said, he lifted a hank of hair and began brushing out the ends in slow, drawn out strokes that were as soothing for him as it was for Stiles. "One of the very first things I ever noticed about you was your hair," that was said softly, "I wondered why a dress was hung on a bramble bush."

Rather than offence, even mock offence, Stiles laughed and it was like a lamp had been placed underneath him to better showcase his beauty. He was lovely in stillness but he was amazing in motion and sublime when he laughed. "It's been a long time since you had to check for dormice."

"Dormice?" Derek teased, "as I recall the snarls were big enough for moles and weasels."

"They kept me warm in bed," Stiles continued with the joke, "but you once said my hair looked as untouched by human hands as parts of far-off Africa. I thought at first you were my friend because you wanted to be the explorer who was known for being the first to touch."

Derek jerked back as if struck for it sounded much like Stiles was flirting with him, not well, but certainly flirting. "Stiles, it's improper," Derek chided him.

"Why is it suddenly improper? We have teased each other like this all of our lives." He screwed up his mouth in distaste and Derek hated that he was the one to make Stiles make that gesture.

"Because you're a lord, and I'm not. I'm only a gentleman farmer, I am lucky enough to be able to vote for parliament, but your father is the old king's privy counselor, he can make change in parliament. We are parts of very different worlds now, and although those worlds might brush against each other they cannot meet." Derek did not like to say it for he wanted nothing more than for Stiles to always be happy, to never know a moment's doubt.

"But you're my Derek," Stiles protested, "and the day we met we promised to be wed, you promised Derek." It looked like he might cry, his lovely golden eyes, catching the lamplight so it looked like they glowed, seemed full and ready to well up with tears.

Derek took Stiles' hand and kissed the knuckle of it, "I would love to keep that promise, for you are my Stiles just as I am your Derek," he licked his lips, "and I would not cause you pain, but we cannot be anything other than brothers. You will marry an alpha who will change the kingdom, and I shall marry some beta girl who knows how to make cheese, and we shall write to each other, and you will forget me, in your world of Versailles and fashion and balls and alphas, and that is how it must be."

"No," Stiles said. "My father,"

"Stiles," Derek said, "it's just the way that the world works. There are castes of society and whilst an omega can rise, they cannot fall, and when you were an Argent we were the same, but now you are Exeter you are so much more."

"I hate it," Stiles said, looking down at where Derek still held his hand.

"Me too," Derek admitted, "more than anything in this world." Then he stood up, still holding Stiles' hand until he had to walk away because he knew if he didn't he might have done something stupid like abscond out of the window with Stiles tucked under his arm.

\---

The next morning at breakfast Stiles was quiet over his boiled eggs, slicing off the top and slicing the bread into fingers that he could dip into the runny yolk, the same way that he had when he was first to come into the Hale farm with Tara stood over him, determined that he eat. Even if he had eaten every morsel of food on the table Tara would have worried that he would not be eating enough because he was so thin when he first arrived there.

He was clearly upset but he had not lost his appetite but he did refuse the offer of wine, and instead shared a pot of lavender tea with Laura whose pregnancy objected, violently, to wine, and eggs, and certain cheeses. The very smell of a soft cheese was enough to make her go grey in the face. Lord Exeter was making polite conversation with her about how excited she must be for the birth and Deucalion was talking to the chatelaine in regards to making sure that cook knew to make something separate for Laura for supper for they intended to eat pork stuffed with cheese and she needed all the supper she could get, eating for two as she was.

She admitted that she was, and part of it was the joy she would take when she returned to London a mother and all of those beta women and omega who were jealous that she had married Deucalion could suffer for their rumours that she was barren and how he should cast her aside because clearly they were more fertile and now she would be the mother of his heir.

Deucalion was a low ranked lord, who by virtue of value and cleverness had risen, had only been able to marry an omega because her parents were gentleman farmers. Omega were rare, perhaps only one was born for every one hundred alphas, and most were born in the very high ranks, but there were those born to the middle classes occasionally, and when Laura had been born in the Beecham lands Deucalion's father had approached the Hales in order that his son might marry an omega.

As Deucalion became more and more useful to the king the more and more Laura's low status made them vicious to her. They would gather to agree on a change in fashion unanimously and then mock her for not knowing to wear it. Red wine might be spilt on pale coloured gowns, accidentally. Then the rumours got worse and worse, and more and more open about her barrenness.

Their viciousness got worse every time it became clear that Deucalion adored Laura. The more affection he showed his wife, and the more useful he became to the king and the higher ranked the people around him became the more vicious they were to her.

As soon as she suspected that she was pregnant she abandoned London and with her brother under house arrest in her home she was enjoying her pregnancy, even the terrible parts and she said as much to Lord Exeter.

Whilst some women bloomed in pregnancy Laura did not, it was a hard pregnancy, she was puffy and her hair untameable and certain foods made her sick, but she was so proud that even the hardships were a joy to her.

Lord Exeter was glad for her and said as much, saying that when his dear Klavdiya was with child she had been almost unable to leave her bed but when the reward was so great it had been worth the hardship, he had said that looking at his son who was eating mechanically and joylessly.

Stiles was unhappy and it was apparent. He had not lost his appetite but his love of food seemed diminished.

"Pater," He said raising his head at the mention of his mother, he had said in his letters that his father was unkeen to speak of his mother for the loss still pained him, "the weather seems that it is fair today," he looked across at the windows, "might we go riding? after so long travelling from London I feel I need the exercise."

"Would you rather not walk the estate?" Deucalion said, "the weather is clement for the time of year and the woodlands are lovely having shed their branches. It is a good time of year to walk and be alone with your thoughts."

"That, Lord Beecham, is the last thing that I want," he said, "my thoughts flit through my mind like kingfishers, and I would rather not dwell on them, truly I wish to ride a horse hard and know that I must pay attention or be lost, I wish my head to be empty."

"There are horses in the stable," Deucalion said, "as long as they are returned without broken limbs I can see no reason not to."

"Might Io accompany me?" Stiles asked, turning to Derek, "Marcus is a fine companion and I love him dearly but I think Io might better enjoy a long hard run."

"You would be right," Derek said, "it has been months since I could do more than exercise her in the house, she would enjoy it."

Io, hearing her name spoken stood up and lumbered, still mostly asleep, over to Stiles and dumped her head, heavy as it was, on his thigh.

"Don't give in to her begging," Lord Exeter said, noticing the dog's behaviour, "we don't want to give her Marcus' bad manners now do we?"

"A little bit of biscuit won't hurt," Stiles said, slipping the dog a bit of the aforementioned food. In the Hale house, Stiles had slipped Carter almost all of his supper to the dog's delight, and it seemed he had carried the habit to Marcus, the dog that Peter had given him, and now to Io, whose life as a war dog had come to an ending. Marcus accompanied Stiles everywhere, and the previous night Marcus had lain in Stiles' bed whilst Derek had bushed his hair.

Stiles' hair was now gathered in a perfunctory knot at the base of his neck, with a side parting and a few wispy curls in front of his ears, and his clothes seemed more suited to a hard ride in the winter, because although they were still that distinctive dark red that he favoured they were wool and not velvet and he was wearing boots instead of shoes, so Derek could not see his tantalising clocks.

"Derek," Lord Exeter asked, turning in his seat, "would you like to accompany me and my son on our ride?" Derek more than anything wanted that, both because he was feeling the walls close in with his house arrest and the sound of a ride sounded positively blissful and because he wanted to spend time with Stiles. "As High Sheriff I think it wouldn't matter if you broke house arrest in my company, we shall get the horses ready, a good hard ride sounds wonderful, Deucalion, you will accompany us, certainly, allow your lovely wife to return to bed for a little while, and get off her feet, they are probably aching." Laura's sigh suggested he was right, "then all is set, and we shall go riding."


	13. Chapter 13

Peter arrived at Lord Beecham's manor with Cora just in time for Derek to be returned to London for his trial. This meant that Cora could stay with her sister during her confinement and that Peter could represent his nephew in court.

Laura did not want her husband to leave and so Peter insisted that Deucalion stay and Lord Exeter repeated that insistence citing that he would not forgive himself if he did not and that if they did need him a man would be sent, but that he should stay with his wife, even though the midwife insisted that it was just late pregnancy hysteria.

Stiles offered to stay with her and after considering the sour mood that his son had shared with them Lord Exeter agreed. Stiles was pleased by this saying that he wanted to be there for the birth of his first niece or nephew even though he was not truly related but he considered Laura and Cora as his sisters, but he had never looked at Derek like that and Derek had heard him arguing with his father late at night but he couldn't make out what was shouted.

It was also agreed that Io, although she whined and cried, would remain at the manor where she could be daily exercised and treated as a beloved family member instead of at court where Derek could not be sure what would happen to her.

Lord Exeter's arrival had relaxed many of the restraints around Derek's imprisonment so when the time came to ride to London he was capable of the long ride without too much risk of injury even if he was stiff and aching each morning.

As such, surrounded by guards as they were it was a surprise when they were attacked by bandits, and Derek, the only unarmed one among them, for even Peter had taken a flintlock, had leaped up to push Lord Exeter to the ground and in doing so took a musketball to the arm which had been where Lord Exeter's back had been only moments before.

Although the fight was quickly resolved and most of the dark figures escaped into the night, pursued by half the guard, and several dead bodies littered the camp, a man was sent to the nearest town to send word of what had happened to the magistrate, and Derek's arm, which was broken, was splinted and placed in a sling where it might be better tended in London.

"You saved my life," Lord Exeter said after Derek was given relief for the pain and set before the fire, "did you do it for Stiles?" In his position in court Lord Exeter was used to people acting because they wanted something. In London there was no such thing as simple kindness because everyone wanted to get ahead, and he had held a very high office with the late king and although his position was not nearly so high with the new king he was still highly placed, and he was glad to pass over the duty of waking the king and preparing him for bed to another that he might spend more time with his son.

"I did it because you were there, my lord," Derek answered honestly, "even as a soldier I would not have stood for a man to die when it was in my power that they be saved." Derek might have wanted to explain to Lord Exeter how it was long acquaintance with Stiles that had instilled that behaviour in him. How he had learned kindness in learning to be kind to be Stiles who needed kindness and it was all that Derek had to offer. He wanted to say that he had learned to be kind to animals that he might share that kindness with Stiles. He ached to say how he had been kind to Evelyn Argent, even though she was part of the family who had killed his parents, because Stiles needed him to be kind to her.

In the war he was known as a good commander who never sent his men into needless things for glory or personal advancement. His men would later testify that no danger was risked unless he was right beside them. These were things he had learned so that he could share them with Stiles because the only thing he could offer Stiles in those very early days was kindness, whether that was bringing a blanket with him for them to sit on in their shaded spot by the stream that separated his land from that the Argents kept, or brushing out his hair with a stolen comb and one of his sister's ribbons, that she had lost behind a dresser and did not know that Derek had retrieved and kept for the wild omega child that he met by the stream.

Lord Exeter chewed upon the knowledge that Derek had given him. "There are many who would have seized the opportunity that they might buy my favour with their heroism."

"Bollocks," Derek muttered and Peter laughed out loud. "You spend too long in London, my lord, that you cannot recognise that it might be nothing more than luck, either good or bad depending on your perception, that you were the one who happened to be there, I would have done the same for any in this company."

"Derek," Peter said, putting his hand down on Derek's leg. "You could have asked for your freedom in this matter."

"Again, respectfully, I say bollocks," the syrup that the camp medic had given him to ease his pain was also serving to loosen his morals and so he said words that he might use freely around his men in the field, or his laborers at the farm but not in front of one of the premier lords of the realm.

"I apologise for his behaviour," Peter said and put the back of his hand to Derek's brow as he had when Derek was a child and was feverish, and he found it cool and slightly damp from sweat even in front of the fire. "Being self serving myself I can see how many would snatch such an opportunity but my nephew, I think, would be happier with nothing but his own farm doing well, a mug of ale and a good slice of pie."

"I have noticed how he looks at my son," Lord Exeter said with a sigh, "and how my son looks at him in return, whosoever marrries my son inherits my fortune and lands, for I have no other heir, and I cannot, in good conscience, allow him to marry a sheep farmer, even a Gentleman in fine standing."

"Were I my sister, who was the alpha of our family and Derek's mother, I would argue with you that such should not get in the way of their happiness, but I am more aware of society than she, even if I was based in Bristol," Peter stared into the fire as he spoke. "In London Derek would be miserable and he would take that misery out on Stiles, for he could not help but find him responsible, and I fear they would be more cruel to him than they have been to Laura, for they would see his rise as even more unwarranted than hers. They are covetous of their position for they want nothing more than to rise."

"Perhaps that is why Lord Flitwick is so determined to see him," Lord Exeter's eyes flicked to Derek who was mostly awake, but was in truth mostly dozing sat on a rock by the fire, dulled by the syrup and pain, but was trying to listen. "Derek recieved, by virtue of merit and skill, position in the military that Lord Flitwick felt was his alone, perhaps that was why he was so keen when this nonsense accusation was levelled against him."

"So even you think it is nonsense?" Peter pressed.

"It is an accusation based entirely on location, and Lord Flitwick knows it, Derek's military record is impeccable, and his reputation untarnished, but many of those arrested or captured who served the bastard were from the same area of Taunton."

"Argents?" Peter asked.

"To a man," Lord Exeter agreed, "but Flitwick is determined that this will face its day in court because Derek struck him."

"For slandering your son as I recall," Peter used a stick that he had found somewhere to poke at the fire. He did it entirely that he might have something to do with his hands.

"For that he is not standing trial, thank the Lord," Lord Exeter said, "his commander wrote it off as nothing more than the usual hijinks between armed men and had them both serve a penance for it, which of course has made Flitwick even more resentful, even if it was nothing more substantial than a missed meal."

"With such men," Peter said, "it is more the insult than the actual grievance, but I am also told, by several informants, that Lord Flitwick intends to make offer for your son."

Lord Exeter scrubbed his hand over his hair in gesture so similar to his son's that Peter felt a pang of loss at seeing it. "Flitwick might offer as many times as he likes, the answer will always be no. He is an odious toadlicker."

In his sleep Derek muttered bollocks again, but it was not clear whether he was aware of what he was saying.

"It is no surprise that the bastard found the support he did, many of those in court remember what life was like under the new model army," Lord Exeter continued, "and so everyone scrabbles for position. I am supposed I am just used to such, but with it comes accusation. Who would benefit from accusing your nephew, sir, and what would they stand to gain."

"The Argents hold grudges dear to their heart, they are so exquisite at the art of vendetta that I wonder if their ancestral lands are not in Corsica," Lord Exeter gave a chuff of laughter at that, which was what Peter intended. "The Hales have stood in their way since they first settled in the valley and has been responsible for the hanging of many of their foot-soldiers. We have been at war with them for longer than I have been alive, and with their new leader they are more vicious than before. They accused him because they could and that they would benefit from it because without Hales in Malmsmead they would suffer far less impediment."

Lord Exeter chewed the information over. "Your nephew will have a powerful champion in me. I would have defended him regardless just in response to the kindness you have shown my son."

"I know," Peter said and poked the embers again. "Our new king, what kind of alpha is he?"

Lord Exeter did not know why Peter asked such a question but he did answer him, giving him as much information as was possible, being plain and frank in his answers. He had learned in the period of their acquaintance that Peter was an excellent judge of character and if he wished for that information then it would be with good reason.

\---

Derek arrived in London for what was the second time in his life lashed to a horse for the syrup that the medic had given him seemed to have robbed him of his wits and he was given lodgings in Lord Exeter's house although he was, by virtrue of his injury, confined to his room which was well appointed and very inviting. He was treated, not as a prisoner, but instead a welcome guest.

So when he was brought breakfast one morning by Peter he was surprised when Lord Exeter joined him. "We met with the king last night," Lord Exeter said, "and the charges against you have been dropped, word of your heroism, both in battle and in the attempt made upon my life, was brought up," he continued, "and in response the king has granted you a provisional tenancy."

"Provisional?" Derek asked, even as he stabbed at his eggs with his knife, with only one hand the act of peeling a boiled egg had become very difficult, and even the simple task of slicing the top off the egg had become a feat worthy of Hercules.

"Yes," Peter said, "he is giving you command of two hundred men to clear the Argents out of the valley and if you can, then you will become Lord of Maunacre," it was, though it was often forgotten, the name of the farm that the Hales held but was always called the Hale farm or the Hale house. "With it will come the tenancy of the valley and such lands around it as would have been held by the Lord of Maunacre as it stood before the Lord Protector's forces destroyed the old lordship."

"Isn't that Deucalion's lands?" Derek asked, baffled by the whole thing.

"Actually no, the land has been held in common trust," Peter explained, "with such taxes as would go to Maunacre going directly to the crown. There are several such estates around the country and the crown holds them in reserve that he might dispense them on those that he feels deserves them."

"And all I have to do is command the men to remove the Argents?" Derek asked.

"All, he says," Peter laughed, "like it is not a feat many before you have tried and failed at."

"They did not have two hundred of the king's soldiers at their back," Derek answered.

"We shall leave you to your breakfast," Lord Exeter said standing up, "you have plans to make."

As they left, Peter closing the door behind him, Lord Exeter said to the man beside him, "he did not realise that such a rank would mean that I could accept any offer that he might make for my son."

"It'll sink in, my lord," Peter said. "He's diligent in his thinking if not fast, but clever enough," he grinned his wolf's grin, "and perhaps the chagrined yelling of Lord Flitwick when he learns of the king's decision will goad him to the realisation."


	14. Chapter 14

Derek took the time of his convalescence in Lord Exeter's house to plan the attack on the Argents. Peter sent word to Malmsmead that the men were to be gathered on the king's order but did not inform them what it was that that they were gathered for. To prevent word spreading to the Argents that they might flee, as they had previously when people had moved against them, or prepared for seige for their valley only had one entry and it meant that if they were given time they might be able to repel the invasion.

Derek did not put it past Gerard Argent who was the current family head.

The only thing that was said was that the men were to be gathered for the king and only those able to be spared were to mobilise, this was qualified by a rumour, planted by Peter and several agents in the towns around Taunton, of pirate raids by the Spanish in nearby Cornwall that had been foundered by the rockier shores.

It had not been so long since the Spanish Armada had foundered in English seas so it was not difficult for the rumours to take hold, and the locals started to watch the horizon knowing that if a Spanish ship foundered the entire cargo would not need to be passed to their lords. Such a practise had long since been the nature of seaside towns. One of the crimes most often attributed to the Argents was that of leading cargo ships to founder on the rocks, they would then set sail in row boats to offer aid to the boat, murder the crew and steal the entire cargo. The foundered boat would then be sunk to try and hide the evidence of what had been done, but the sea spat out what it could not keep down.

It would have been the job of Lord Maunacre and his magistrate to punish them, but Lord Maunacre had died without issue in the civil war and the role had been seen as too much bother for anyone to try to claim, and so the Argents had not quite run wild, for the local populace tried their best to police them, but they had never been able to be stopped, and with the currying for favour in the restored court no lord or Earl had stepped forward to deal with it just because it had so needed to be done.

Derek's plan was simple and devastating in its simplicity.

He separated the two hundred men into two divisions, one of which would guard the walls of the valley in case any tried to escape that way, and then the larger part was separated into eight squads of twenty men who would be able to move much more quietly through the countryside in the hope that they could infiltrate the valley with more ease than two hundred armed soldiers in one unit. The mouth of the valley and the support lines necessary for such a movement would be protected by the local labourers who lacked the training in military matters as the paid soldiers. They would protect the rear and prevent any escaping the valley.

Any Argent alpha or beta man who raised arms, defined as firearms or steel, against a soldier was to be incapacitated as fully as necessary, which included killing them but it was a last resort only to be taken when the possibility of incapacitation was impossible for they were to stand trial. Peter had suggested poisoning their well to weaken them but Derek remembered that Stiles had been a child in that valley and so there were children, and women who had been snatched and he declared that it was not to be done. For poisoning a well where only men would drink the water was one thing, but the Argents seemed to live on stolen rum and beer and it would only be the women and children who were made sick.

Derek himself was to lead one of the groups of twenty, with his sling tucked under his jacket and with flintlock and his mother's sword, despite Peter's entreaties that he stick to the rear and help guard the mouth of the valley. Peter himself was to lead another of the squads forr his anger was no less than Derek's own.

In the hours between midnight and dawn the soldiers gathered and descended into the valley in utter silence with only the radiance of the moon, blessedly full and bright, to light their way. Drunk and stupefied with sleep there was not as much resistance as had been feared, and many of the houses were cleared by kicking down the door, if the latch could not easily be lifted by a knife under it, and the alpha of the house, or male beta, woken with a sword under his chin and bound and left where he was, their family, if they had one, often gaunt-faced and terrified were given a round of bread and told to hide somewhere in the house until someone came to lead them to somewhere safe.

The food seemed to do more to gain their obedience than any threat of violence, as Derek had known that it would. He remembered what Stiles had said, and how many times that Stiles had shown up at their stream bed hungry for Derek to give him some of Tara's fruit-filled drop scones, one of which Derek gave to every child with large terrified eyes that looked up at him.

The only show of food growth in the village, and the Argent compound could only be called that, was half barrels that had been filled with soil and used to grow dandelions. It was likely that the children were used to foraging in the local hedgerows and the vast majority of their foodstuffs were taken in raids that these people saw the least of. Perhaps if the alpha of their family, and this might be a beta but the term still applied, was kind he would take enough food for his family as part of his share but it was clearly fought over like wild dogs with a small morsel of meat. Every child that Derek saw reminded him of Stiles, wide-eyed and starving in clothes that were best suited to the scrap pile. It was his duty as the forthcoming Lord Maunacre that they were fed and taken care of.

Peter had questioned his kindness for they were Argents.

Derek had replied that so was Stiles and they had taken him into their home.

Peter had not had an answer to that.

They had swept through each house as quietly as they could, extinguishing lights as they went but at some point one of the small wooden houses, barely more than hovels, had caught light and the fire attracted attention so the raid ended with heated battle but by that point most of the Argent foot soldiers had been apprehended and perhaps the fifteen armed men had been no matched for near sixty trained soldiers armed with muskets as well as steel.

Against the back wall of the valley, the head of the Argent family had built a long house in the northern style. It was a long building which served to both house animals and as a throne room where people could gather to celebrate their thefts. Stiles, who had been a font of information over the years about the Argent valley, had lived in one of the upper rooms with Evelyn who had been the Argent Matriarch until she was murdered by Kate and Kate's father, Gerard, had snatched the role. Evelyn's revenge had been to take Stiles, and their plans for him, far from them. Evelyn, as far as Derek could tell, had never approved of the plan which had been put in place for Stiles where by forcing him into marriage with Kate they might claim Lord Exeter's estate and wealth. They had snatched him from the road when he was barely more than a suckling babe, murdered his mother and then kept him from home and family for the first ten years of his life in the old skirts of Evelyn Argent.

Gerard Argent had not been woken by the furore of the fire and the pitched fighting, he was sat in a padded chair by the fire at the head of his long house, still holding a pewter mug that must have held rum. He had a ragged velvet cap on his bald head and a blanket over his shoulders. When he awoke, seeing Derek holding a flintlock he took note of the empty sleeve of his coat and gave a laugh that sprayed spittle over his stained linen shirt.

"So this is how it ends," he said. Gerard had always struck Derek as being disturbing in a way that other Argents were not. Kate was a threat of violence that was barely restrained and was all the worst things of alphas that were possible. Gerard was instead the scheming serpent, clever in a way that his daughter was not, manipulative and cruel. "The rest is silence." Derek had enough education to recognise the words, and even to start that Argent knew them.

"Shakespeare, really?" Derek said, holding his flintlock up to threaten the old man but he did not seem disturbed. "Would you not prefer "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war"?"

"Demand me nothing, what you know you know."

"I know I have no patience to stand and debate poetry with an old man," Derek said, "take him into custody, he shall stand in front of the magistrate for his crimes."

The old man lunged for Derek, and in doing so twisted, pulled a knife from his belt and as Derek's men reached forward to prevent any injury coming to their commander brought the point of the blade across his own saggy throat, staining his front with blood and fell to his knees before he fell dead at Derek's feet, with his men cursing in surprise at what they had seen. "Search him," Derek said, just as shocked as his men by the act of suicide, "none here has seen Kate and we cannot rest until she is captured also."

In the pocket of Gerard's waistcoat, which was just as stained as his shirt and open over the bulge of his stomach, the soldier pulled a length of stained riband upon which was a golden pendant which he offered to Derek.

Derek recognised it instantly for it was the pendant that Stiles had done his best to keep safe until it had been stolen from the Hale house as Peter tried to negotiate peace with the Argents in Malmsmead. The locket was the one that would prove without question Stiles' legacy as Lord Exmoor's lost child, and without the childish belief that Stiles' mother's love was kept in the locket Derek popped it open with his thumbnail, hoping that the Argents had not sold the portraits inside, to find a portrait of a young woman who looked so like Stiles that he had a momentary pang of loss that they were apart, and a baby in a lace cap that must have been Stiles at the time of the sitting,

He tucked the pendant back into the pocket of his own waistcoat, in the watch pocket where it would not be lost. Stiles would be delighted to see it returned, and stepping over Argent's body he took the first step as Lord Maunacre. He would worry about Kate when this was under control, when those who needed to stand before the magistrate were taken to gaol, when the children and mothers, and there was no omega among them, were brought to adequate housing and given food and warm clothes. Let this settlement burn, he thought, and save those whom he could.

In London Stiles would be waiting for him, and he would have a coat of arms, a title and a living, he could offer for him and be listened to, and in the pocket of his waist coat he had the pendant that had carried the love of Stiles' parents, and no greater gift could be offered to a bride than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so close to the end of this that I'm going to polish it off to ease my schedule a bit - christmas knitting does not knit itself unfortunately, i have baubles and elves to knit!, but that means you might not [probably won't] get the next chapter of the noon bride tomorrow, ideally you'll have the last chapter of this!  
> Ha to those who thought that of the three that I would finish the noon bride first - stiles is tricksy and just will not give an inch
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> also Maunacre is pronounced moonacre which is a nod to one of my favourite books when I was a child, Elizabeth Goudge's the little white horse


	15. Chapter 15

It was decided, against Stiles' violent and vehement objections, that the marriage between Stiles and Derek would take place after a further two years giving Derek a chance to get Maunacre into a form of functionality and giving Stiles more time with his father - even if he did spend most of his time cooing over Laura's baby, dangling silver bells on ribands for the baby to grab at to Stiles' utter delight and he had mentioned to Derek, which had caused him to go white, that he intended to have at least a bushel of them.

Derek had never really considered that Stiles might be a parent in the strange way that he had always believed that he and Stiles would be married and they would continue as they always had. He had occasionally had ideas of Stiles as an omega, with dreams that left him changing his sheets, but then Stiles had been revealed as a high born lord and Derek had done his best to put those thoughts out of his mind because he knew, even if Stiles would not admit it, that they would not marry. And now it was agreed that they would and even a date had been set and Derek was yet to change his mind from refusing to see Stiles in that fashion to being encouraged to.

Even if the clocks on Stiles' stockings had always made his mouth water and his mind turn to desire, and that Stiles always wore stockings with short pants so that he could display them proudly possibly unaware of the effect it had on nearby alphas. He said that it was all the rage in France and then crossed his legs further displaying the damn clocks.

Yet now they were engaged Lord Exeter was forced to maintain a physical distance between them because Stiles was the worst kind of flirt and would do things that he considered scandalous like loosening and removing his jabot to show the curve of his neck, and on one occasion after explaining at length the details that he wished for his winter wedding - a thing he had decided when Laura had been married - he had arranged to kiss Derek. It had been clumsy and he had clearly not known where it was that he should put his hands but it had been wonderful and Lord Exeter having discovered his son's intents to debauch Derek, and those were his words, he insisted that they spend as much time apart as possible before they were wed.

But it was the image of Stiles walking around chattering about nonsense to Laura's baby Millicent, with the baby's linen gown slipping down over his arm, and Stiles was shirtless, wearing a pair of carpet slippers and his hair in a loose braid in the baby's sticky fist as he explained about lamps and carpets that Derek carried with him to Malmsmead and his duty there.

It had taken time, often required to be in London to testify for the court in regards to the men that had been arrested, some of which were to be deported and others executed for their crimes, to find a way to help all of the families that he had taken under his care, of which there were nearly ten, numbering over twenty children.

As part of his bequest from the king in regards to Maunacre he had asked that the seven women were granted divorces if they wanted them, but one had argued that her alpha had been kind and done everything that she could to provide for her family and asked that when her wife was deported that she and her children could accompany them. Derek could not refuse them although he did counsel against it for life in the colony of Jamestown in Virginia was hard and her alpha would have to serve five years of indentured servitude for her crimes.

Three of the other women accepted the divorces, the other two accepting widowhood and helped turn the almost derelict Maunacre manor into a place where the families could live together until they had houses of their own. Derek had allowed them to renovate the house and made sure that they were paid for their labour which allowed them to buy food and take care of their children, and when Tara learned of it, she had rolled up her sleeves as his housekeeper and taken over.

Suddenly the ragged looking children were given sturdy clothes, and Tara, with one of the babies on a sling on her hip, was directing men to repair the thatched roof that they might have a place to sleep out of the rain, making sure that it was weatherproof before winter. Once that was done she started to pay the women to renovate the house properly, whilst their children were marched, often complaining, to the village school which they had never attended before.

Derek might have been lord in name but it was Tara who did most of the ordering about, and it was Tara that everyone listened to and obeyed.

During the folderol of restoring the manor, with the five women given lodgings- one of which had found romance with the local miller and moving out, saying she did not need a church service to be married, Derek also prepared to be married. It was not often he was given time enough to make any plans. Sometimes it overwhelmed him then he remembered it was Stiles that he would be wed to and his nerves settled for he loved Stiles and he knew that completely.

Stiles wrote him daily, mostly his letters were full of London gossip, or word of little Millicent or how Cora was popular at court with her soft beauty and cutting wit, but sometimes he spoke of what would happen when they were married and how Stiles ached for love of him, and that he wore the locket that Derek had returned to him next to his heart so that it contained the love of both of his parents and of Derek, keeping him warm in his cold bed.

Stiles was never far from his thoughts. When Tara returned from Taunton with a fine wool carpet and a down mattress for the master bedroom she spoke of decorating the room the way that Stiles would like it and how she was so proud to be preparing the trousseau for her little moppet.

When the wives, as Tara referred to the women who now worked in the house, scrubbed down the kitchens with cold water and salt, Derek remembered that these would be Stiles' kitchens and he had to sit down.

When the workmen put in the plates of window glass he was overwhelmed thinking that Stiles would stand at these windows and he would decide how the gardens were laid out and he would raise their children in these lands and Derek found it hard to breathe because it was so very much.

And what truly dazzled him was how quickly the two years that Lord Exeter had demanded passed by. Stiles wanted to invite Lord Flitwick but his father had said no, none of Stiles' other suitors was to be invited because they were all awful and it was not funny, even if Stiles couldn't stop laughing at it.

Derek was surprised when Peter woke him by luring out Io with bacon that he might grab his nephew by the foot and drag him out of his bed to prepare him for the ceremony. Peter had never truly outgrown his impish sense of humour, and he suspected that given the chance Derek would spend the day with the sheep unaware of the importance of the day because he had been so busy that he had very few opportunities to notice how time passed.

Even if Derek had grown to be taller and broader than Peter his uncle had never stopped using his physicality to tease Derek, and doing such things as dragging him out of his bed by one foot was a favourite and Peter was clearly going to enjoy the last opportunity for after that day he would share his bed with Stiles, and although Stiles might not wake - he had always slept like the dead - Derek might react much more violently to a threat to his omega in their den, even if such instincts were considered to be very uncouth.

Peter, rolling his eyes as Derek for it had been decided that he would wed Stiles on the day that they had met and everything had fallen in place so Derek's sudden nerves, which were more awe than fear, baffled him, both made sure that he was dressed and marched him to the church.

Stiles had been planning his winter wedding to Derek since he was ten years old and Laura had married Deucalion in the middle of the May day celebrations, and Peter, who had been told the details had at the time worried over the cost but Lord Exeter had not blinked an eye at the cost.

Stiles entered in a red velvet capelet trimmed in white fur with a hood falling down his back and lined in gold satin. Underneath it, he wore the London fashion of a heavily embroidered satin waistcoat and red velvet knee breeches with black leather shoes with gold satin rosettes, and he had a crown of holly, just as he had asked when he was ten. It was twisted into the crown of his long dark hair. His face had been powdered with pearls that meant in the candlelight of the small Malmsmead church it glowed, and there was a gloss on his lips.

Every time Derek saw him he was struck by his beauty but this was overwhelming and Derek was certain that if Peter had not put his hand on the small of his back that he might fall when he saw him. "I love you," Stiles mouthed with a soft smile and Derek found that he could not swallow.

This had been the wild creature of hair and gown that he had befriended beside a small waterfall on the day that Derek's parents had been buried. This had been the boy who he had taught to read in a small crevasse by that waterfall, and combed his wild hair and taken into his home. And he had never stopped being so magical to Derek, this long-legged sylvan creature who might have been more at home in one of Shakespeare's plays than he did in a place such as Malmsmead and he smiled at Derek and the world felt so large and so small all at once.

He reached the altar and took Derek's hand, twining their fingers together and when he turned to him Derek could see the pendant that he wore over his satin waistcoat and the gloss on his lips and how his golden eyes seemed to shine with their own light as the candles around them flickered.

The priest was talking but Derek had to be nudged to answer because he was lost in Stiles and so overwhelmed with happiness that he felt that he might burst. "I do," he blurted out and the gathered people laughed, and even baby Millicent laughed so it must have been the wrong thing to say but Stiles just laughed too and it was all well.

They had just exchanged rings and were laughing and everything was joyful when Kate Argent kicked open the church door, raised her flintlock and fired.

Derek stood there for a long moment, in shock as people started to shout, as Peter rushed past him and Lord Exeter leapt from the pew where he had been sat and then Derek turned and Stiles was on the floor, sprawled across the dais with his legs folded under him, the white silk of his stockings torn through the decorative clock and his lovely golden satin waistcoat was red with blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BWAH HAHAHAHAHA THAT'S HOW YOU DO A CLIFFHANGER  
> resolution tomorrow


	16. Chapter 16

Derek stood for a long moment with Stiles' blood splattered on his face before he reacted and when he did it was with a roar that was more animal than man. He could not think for the pain of it, pain so great it was as if he too had been shot. Bellowing like a bull he charged at Kate who had thrown the flintlock to the side and was trying to free her sword from the scabbard but seeing Derek running towards her she turned and fled, trying to untether the horse from the hitching post at the same time as climbing upon it.

All of Derek's thoughts were full of rage and the need to see her brought low for what she had done. She had killed Stiles and he would not let her escape. He was still in his wedding finery as he watched her, gold hair streaming behind her like a banner, run between the houses, unable to free her horse.

"KATE!" he roared and her only answer was laughter, high and manic. Had Derek had more wits about him he would have known that Kate was not one who was much given to thought, that this plan had been a whim that she had decided to indulge. It was likely that her entire plan was that Stiles had been promised to her and that if she could not have him, and his fortune, then no one could.

Unfortunately, that part of Derek's brain was not active and he had reverted to the worst stereotype of an alpha.

During his life Derek had experienced periods where his alpha self had acted for him, and all of those instances had been where he had considered Stiles to be threatened, including taking an axe to a tree that Stiles had fallen out of because he had been too rambunctious for the branch. Stiles had been fine, not even winded by the fall, but Derek had taken an axe and cut the tree to the ground.

That same mindless beast rage was exploding from him now. He leapt over a gate as if it was no more effort than taking a single stair and chased Kate across the field, and the more she ran the more it was becoming apparent that she was scared.

Kate had always been arrogant. Her position in the Argent family and her father's doting had turned her into a creature of explicit want. She wanted nothing she could not simply take and as her reputation spread the easier to became for her to take what she wanted. The only thing she had ever been denied had been Stiles, and then it had not been Stiles that she wanted but his inheritance. It was likely she had thought if she had bothered to at all, that no one would challenge her, that she would be able to escape.

She had been on the run for nearly two years and it showed. Her blonde hair was ragged and her clothes almost tatters. It was likely that she had only had the one shot for the flintlock which was why she had cast it aside, and now Derek was chasing her. He had a knife in his belt but other than that he was unarmed and Kate's sword would not come free of its sheath.

In the wild lands of the moor, perhaps as much as a mile from the village, where the bogland was, Derek caught Kate with a launched assault on her back, wrestling her to the ground.

Derek had spent the last two years learning to be a lord so he had not spent as long with the sheep as he had growing up but he was still a man who did not do well without exercise. He was young and strong, although perhaps not as strong as he had been when he had gone to war, and he was full of rage in a way that he had not thought possible, and before him, this writhing she-demon was the one who had killed his Stiles.

They rolled around, levelling blows when possible before Kate managed to kick her way free, she had scrabbled across with one hand for a rock but found nothing, so had done her best to come to her feet. Derek was able to use the sudden freedom to shove her hard. It was enough to force her back and as she came to her feet she stumbled, taking one step back to right herself and then another. Derek charged her in the stomach with his shoulder.

Kate fell back unto her ass with a wet slap into the bog, cracking the thin veneer of ice that had covered it with a sound like a gunshot. The ice had made it look exactly like the hard and frosty ground around it. The bogs of Exmoor were dangerous and Kate's panic started to overwhelm her. She tried to thrust her hand down to find solid ground that she might pull herself free but her hand was sucked down into the mud, mud that free of the ice was pulling at her hips and back.

Something about her struggle brought Derek to his senses and he jerked off his jacket to give her something to grab and pull herself free. He could then march her to the magistrate and she could be properly tried. He was not so lost that he would not allow her to die in such a terrible manner when the quick death of a gallows awaited her.

Kate knocked the jacket away.

"Take it," Derek told her. He had had his life undone by her several times over and this was perhaps the first time he had really been able to see her, as she slowly sank to her death in the bogs of Exmoor. She had been a handsome woman with a leonine mane of golden hair, but the years had been hard on her and she was haggard, with muscles like whipcords and a sneer like a knife slash on her face.

"I'd rather die," she answered and her voice was like gravel.

"Then you will," Derek told her, "take the coat, you'll be given a chance to make your peace with God."

Kate laughed and the ends of her hair were black with the bog mud as she descended. "I'll see your little whore in Hell," she said and it was enough, Derek, tired and heartbroken watched her sink. Even as much as he hated her, and he did, he stood vigil over her as she sank into the abyss.

\---

He made no effort to return to Malmsmead as quickly as he had left. He was exhausted, his wedding finery ruined, and his coat left in the bog, sucked in by the mud as it devoured Kate, leaving nothing but a few bubbles in her wake. He knew that he was smeared in blood and muck but he had no reason to care.

Stiles was dead.

Kate was dead.

Alone, most strangely, he remained.

It made no sense to him, that you could live when all the things that you could live for were gone, so he was surprised when the boy that Peter had adopted, Liam, pulled up on Derek's fine horse. "There ya are," he said and offered Derek a hand that he might pull up on the saddle behind him, "half the town's looking fer ya."

"It doesn't matter," Derek said in a low voice he wasn't sure would be heard.

"The doctor's lookin' fer ya," Liam told him, "he dun want the young 'mega wakin' up on 'is weddin' day and you God 'lone knows where."

"He's alive," the words seemed to be almost in another language for Derek was sure that he had misheard him, "but he was shot."

"Strangest fing," Liam told him, "he's 'urt, and 'urt bad, but not fit to die, that necklass fing of his, caught the ball, stopped it 'nuff, or so Peter says, says it were an act of God hisself."

Derek felt like the legs had been cut out from under him. Stiles was not dead. Stiles was alive. He took Liam's arm and pulled himself up on the horse, "ride, man, ride!" And Derek felt like he could fly. His Stiles was alive, hurt but alive, saved by the locket.

Perhaps those years before Stiles had been right when he had claimed that the locket was full of his mother's love, for it had saved his life. Derek's head felt so light he was again rid of thought.

Stiles was alive.

Kate was dead and Stiles was alive.

\---

Stiles had been tended there in the church by the doctor who had been attending the wedding. He had done what he could to stop the bleeding and prevent infection and then Peter, trusting no one else to do it, had carried Stiles to a wagon that they could take him to Maunacre house which was the closest place they could install him that was not the tavern. It meant it was easier to keep his surroundings clean for it might be several weeks before he could leave his bed. He faded in and out of consciousness asking for Derek and Peter lied and told him that he was Derek and it was all going to be well.

He was asleep when Liam brought Derek to the house, and Peter looked at his nephew and was prepared to bar him entry for he looked like he had been rolling around in the bog. His clothes were torn and covered in the thick black tarry mud. "He's sleeping," Peter said, "go wash up, and you can see him."

"I shall see him first," Derek insisted and then seeing the look on his uncle's face softened a little, "it will give them a chance to heat the water for me. I shall stand at the door, I need to see him."

"He's with his father," Peter said, "and he's waited this long to see you, he can wait a little longer."

"I shall stand at the door," Derek repeated, "I need," he put every stress on the word that he could, "to see him."

"And Kate?" Peter asked.

"Gone," Derek answered and would say no more on the matter.

True to his word, although he wanted nothing more than to run to him, Derek observed Stiles from the door. The room had been fitted for Stiles with heavy wooden wainscoting and doors, there were tapestries on the wall to prevent the drafts and curtains on the bed, and in the white sheets he looked very pale and very small, with his long black braid pulled down over the other shoulder to the one that was so heavily bandaged. Derek let out a part of his breath he had no known that he was holding on seeing him. He was sleeping, with his mouth slack and snoring a bit as he did, with his father sitting on a stool beside the bed, his hands gathered in prayer and looking even more grey than his son.

This was not how Derek had imagined that his first night as a married man would be but seeing Stiles eased in sleep, even one that was medicated, was enough to let the tension drain from him. "I look like a bog beast, uncle Peter," Derek said in a very small voice.

"I know, pup," Peter said, "we'll get you into the bath and I can tell you everything that has happened."

\---

It took long months for Stiles to recover fully, although his shoulder would always ache in the damp winter nights, and through it all Derek was there, patient when Stiles was angered at the speed of his recovery and their playful mocking became a common refrain in the household. That spring Millicent came to visit with her mother, who was again with child, and for months the house was full of laughter and running feet, even if Stiles still tired easily.

But seeing Stiles with a baby on his knee, even little Millicent who was barely a baby any longer, sitting in front of the fire of Derek's house was enough to fill Derek with such contentment that he knew that all that he had suffered had been worth it, and the final part of how Derek's life had changed the day that his parents had been buried was complete.

In Maunacre house, with his mari and his family, his dogs sprawled in front of the fire, Derek was happy and at peace.


End file.
